The Gazette 12.5.2000
By Warren Epstein 636-0275 wepstein@gazette.com
Maybe the problems with "Battlefield Earth" can be traced to the nose plugs John Travolta wore in the film.
He couldn't smell the stench.
Travolta co-produced this adaptation of the 1982 sci-fi novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and stars as the alien villain. A member of the Church of Scientology, Travolta must be oblivious to how much this movie stinks.
I usually take guilty pleasure in mindless sci-fi action epics. I actually liked "The Fifth Element" and "Waterworld." I even liked "The Postman."
But "Battlefield Earth" is a gritty, ugly, obnoxiously loud, unimaginative crap-heap of a film, piled high with implausibilities and shoddy production values.
And the acting stinks, too.
As the final film credits rolled, I tried to think of anything to recommend it, and all I could think of was the cool alien laser blasters: horseshoe-shaped gizmos that shoot pulse charges that create liquid-like shock waves on impact.
That's about it.
The movie takes place in 3000 A.D. in Denver, which has looked better. The city is in ruins because about 1,000 years ago, all Earth's cities and most of humanity were wiped out by some particularly nasty aliens called Psychlos.
These are basically Klingons with bad teeth, dreadlocks and a rigid corporate hierarchy (there's lots of talk about contacting "the home office," which is either in some distant galaxy or in Sioux City, Iowa - I'm not sure.)
They buzz around in clunky ships that look like giant cartoon cockroaches.
One day, evil corporate climber Terl (Travolta), the security chief, hatches a scheme to use the surviving "man animals" to mine gold. What he doesn't count on is the cleverness of human leader Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (played by Barry Pepper, the religious sniper from "Saving Private Ryan"). Tyler, after getting a heavy dose of knowledge blasted into his head with one of the Psychlos' learning machines, leads a revolt to topple the aliens and take back Earth.
It's a lot less exciting than it sounds.
Here are just a few of the most obvious problems:
Implausibility - After 1,000 years, abandoned jets and flight simulators work more reliably than my regularly serviced PC.
Bad, loud music - Ear-splitting brass and drums punctuate moments that are supposed to be dramatic, though I couldn't figure out why they would be.
Bad acting - As the arrogant alien, Travolta tilts his head back and laughs a lot. Forest Whitaker (it's so sad to see him in this mess) plays his second-in-command as an expert moper. And our hero, Pepper - a student of the Costner School of Acting - runs a lot and delivers his lines with such earnestness, he seems unaware of how corny they are. Bad costumes and makeup - You actually can see the glue that holds on the alien hair. One alien wears a fake double chin that looks on the verge of falling off.
Bad special effects - The painting used to represent the ruined city is so obvious, I kept waiting for one of the ships to crash through the canvas.
Other flaws in the film are just plain weird. For instance, there's a scene in which Travolta's character shows the deadliness of his blaster by shooting a cow. We hear the blast, but the cow explodes off camera. I couldn't figure out whether he had run out of money or Travolta suddenly had converted from Scientology to Hinduism.
'Battlefield Earth'
RATING: D- STARS: John Travolta, Barry Pepper and Forest Whitaker DIRECTOR: Roger Christian PLAYING AT: Kimball's, Academy Station, Carmike, Chapel Hills, Tinseltown and Gold Hill RATED: PG-13 (for sci-fi violence) RUNNING TIME: 117 minutes
