Battlefield Earth
Verdict: The first few moments of the film evoke heroism and noble struggle. After that, it's Grade A drivel.
Details: Starring John Travolta, Barry Pepper and Forest Whitaker. Rated PG-13.
Review: It is the year 3000.
The world has been conquered by aliens and transformed into a distant mining outpost of their intergalactic empire. The few humans who do remain are either captives confined like animals, or outlaws living in remote mountain outposts.
In other words, the situation is something like the American West late in the 19th century. "Battlefield Earth" tells a story that would have been painfully familiar to Geronimo, Crazy Horse, Chief Joseph or any other leader of American Indian resistance to Manifest Destiny.
Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (Barry Pepper) lives among the last free remnants of his race, high in the Rocky Mountains. He wears furs and lives in a tepee, rides a horse and hunts with a spear.
One day, for reasons that are not entirely clear, Jonnie leaves his home for the lowlands. Soon he finds himself captured by the Psychlos, an extremely unattractive alien race that dominates Earth from a domed headquarters in what used to be Denver.
Trained from birth that they can never defeat their persecutors, most of the captives--called "man-animals" by their masters -- submit meekly to the horrors of their plight.
But not Jonnie. In several scenes we see him rush his captors with the ferocity of a cornered beast only to be beaten, lassoed or zapped into submission.
Soon Jonnie's behavior catches the attention of Terl, chief of security for this backwater planet. Terl (John Travolta) has a plan to get off this forsaken rock and make himself wealthy to boot. But he needs a spirited man-animal to pull it off.
Soon (everything happens too soon in this movie) Terl and Jonnie are engaged in a battle of wits with the fate of Earth at stake. As characters and motives spring out of nowhere, the hero and villain engage in a series of poorly lighted scuffles that are very difficult to follow.
As a result, "Battlefield Earth" is chock-full of unintentional mysteries. Do the Psychlos live in a dome because they can't breathe Earth's air, or because their environmental depradations have polluted it, or what?
Just about the time you figure out that the Psychlos have filled their dome with their native planet's gasses, there is a scene in which open fires burn inside it. So if there's oxygen in this artificial atmosphere for fires to burn, how come the man-animals can't breathe it?
And if it has really been eons since the Psychlos destroyed civilization, how come you can still read road signs ("Aspen City Limits") and tattered books in ransacked libraries?
A willing suspension of disbelief is one thing. But "Battlefield Earth" simply asks too much and delivers too little. The special effects aren't particularly impressive, and Travolta's performance as the villainous Terl is merely adequate. There are a few scenes where he and his assistant Ker (Forest Whitaker) squeeze out a drop of the juice that sweetened Travolta's performance with Samuel L. Jackson in "Pulp Fiction." But the taste does not linger.
Not counting Kelly Preston in a walk-on as Terl's Psychlo girlfriend and administrative assistant, there is exactly one female character. Chrissie, played by Sabine Karsenti, is a dream in buckskin and barely flinches even when Terl threatens to blow her head off with some kind of remote-control exploding dog collar.
The script, by Corey Mandell, is based on a 1982 science fiction book by L. Ron Hubbard, father of Scientology. Though Travolta is an adherent to Scientology, he claims that has nothing to do with his starring in a movie based on a book by its founder.
Whatever. The first few moments of "Battlefield Earth" evoke the heroic struggle of native people against a cold, imperialistic foe. After that, it's Grade A drivel.
Matt Crenson, Associated Press
