Psychlo Babble Battlefield Earth is utter nonsense, and proud of it.
By Luke Y. Thompson Say what you will about L. Ron Hubbard and his 1050-page magnum opus Battlefield Earth (i.e., it's overlong, not very well-written, and displays a lack of editing that even the author himself admits to in the introduction), but don't blame him for the messy exposition and ludicrous plot holes in the new film version. Sure, Hubbard had his share of ridiculous conceits, such as the notion that an alien race could wipe out the Earth's population using a lethal gas that can be neutralized with simple table salt (leave it to cavemen to figure that out 1000 years later, naturally), but it doesn't help matters that, in the quest to hack the first half of the novel down to about 120 pages, screenwriter Corey Mandell has condensed, shortened, and amalgamated to the point of incoherence and illogic. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. After all, the end product is a good deal more entertaining than the original novel. Especially when a Hubbard's Machiavellian nine-foot- tall Sasquatch-like alien antagonist is somehow interpreted by the filmmakers as John Travolta decked out like a gay Conehead with Rob Zombie hair, in KISS platform boots (one of the aliens even demonstrates a tongue that would put Gene Simmons to shame). Oh yeah, and a massive prosthetic cock that conspicuously bulges through his pants. Are we amused yet?

The hero of the film is Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (yes, Goodboy is his actual middle name), a man who has clearly been born to save the human race by virtue of the fact that he somehow manages to remain constantly clean shaven in a world with no razors, a world in which every other male character has copious amounts of facial hair. Jonnie (Barry Pepper, the Bible-quoting sniper from Saving Private Ryan) is a caveman who lives up in the mountains, where his people tell tales of evil demons who came from the sky. When his father dies of a mysterious illness, Jonnie decides to leave behind his wide-eyed, open-mouthed paramour (Sabine Karsenti) and brave the great unknown, venturing further afield to find more food and a better place to live for his people. Lo and behold, he discovers a giant CGI matte painting, er, abandoned city, where he hooks up with Carlo (Kim Coates), a convenient amalgamation of every other male human character in the novel, there to provide non-stop expository dialogue. As they camp out in an abandoned shopping mall, disaster strikes: an alien Psychlo (imaginative name, that) kidnaps them and hauls them off to the slave labor camp in Denver, where they are put to use as beasts of burden and referred to as "man-animals" (a term not used in the novel, incidentally, but Travolta sounds hilarious saying it over and over, so just sit back and enjoy).

Need we go on? Briefly: Bitter Psychlo security chief Terl (Travolta) is mad that he has to stay on Earth, so he hatches a plan to secretly mine for his own stash of gold, using humans as labor. Every other Psychlo thinks humans are too stupid to mine, so no one will suspect what he's up to. The gold he wants is in a radiation-contaminated area, and radiation makes Psychlo breathing gas explode, hence the need for humans. And to ensure that the humans know what they're doing, Terl uses a hi-tech knowledge device to beam super-intelligence directly into Jonnie's brain, so that Jonnie can translate the Psychlo language and fly a spaceship. Never does it occur to Terl that giving such knowledge to a person who hates your entire race might be a bad idea.

Before long, Jonnie is rallying the man-animals, telling his fellow prisoners that "they can take our lives, but they'll never take our freeeedommmm!" Sorry, wrong movie, but same idea. Same costumes, too. Characters who were actually Scottish in the book have mysteriously become wild men of Denver, who just happen to be dressed and face- painted like Braveheart.

Anyway, using his newfound intelligence, Jonnie is soon schooling these wild men in the use of firearms, nuclear weapons, and Harrier jump jets seemingly lifted from the Gillette Mach 3 commercial (so that explains Jonnie's smoothly shaven features!). All of which are conveniently located in a subterranean military base, in perfect working order after a millennium of disuse.

The tone of the film is established early on, with Jonnie yelling at the sky in slow-motion as a response to his father's death. If that isn't sufficient, Travolta sets the inanity bar even higher during a scene in which a sleazy drink server begs Terl not to submit evidence against him to the authorities.

Doing his best Pee-wee Herman voice, Travolta replies "As a friend, I could forget to file the report. But unfortunately, I'm not your friend! Ha ha ha!" Thereafter, the film is divided into scenes that showcase either Travolta's absurdity, or Pepper's deadly earnestness. It's hard to decide which is funnier: Pepper almost seems to be a character in a recurring Saturday Night Live skit; call him "Inspirational Speech Man."

Every 15 minutes or so, without fail, he stops to shake his braided locks in slow-motion, then delivers an anti-slavery sermon that starts quietly and ends in impassioned shouting straight from Braveheart 101, as the score gets all dramatic and indicates that we should have tears in our eyes at this point. And we do. But not because it's a moving scene.

Travolta, meanwhile, when he's not channeling Paul Reubens' alter-ego, seems to be emulating Quentin Crisp. It's ironic that an alien so effeminate would still think platform shoes are in.

Aiding and abetting the risibility of the whole enterprise is the script, which seems to assume that many of the film's viewers may be unable to read. And I don't just mean Hubbard's novel. The movie actually starts with a subtitle that reads "Man is an endangered species," a line repeated more than once.

Any time a derelict 20th- century building appears, we are treated to a close-up shot of a sign that tells us what the building is, before the characters enter it and either say out loud what the building is, or demonstrate by some other means.

And not only is a flight simulator clearly labeled "flight simulator" on the outside, but Jonnie is also required to point to it and say "Teach us to fly." Beyond the obviousness of the dialogue, the narrative suffers simply by having to condense the story's length into two weeks, when it takes years in the book.

In the Hubbard narrative, man was a rarity ignored for 1000+ years by the Psychlo race until Jonnie came along and was captured by Terl, so their ignorance of humankind made sense.

Here, man has been enslaved for years. And while it's conceivable that Jonnie can learn to fly from a hi-tech machine that beams the knowledge into his head, it stretches credibility to think that he could teach cavemen to fly planes in seven days. And why do said cavemen constantly use the phrase "Piece of cake," when none of them has ever eaten or heard of cake in his life?

It's funny, though: Given that Hubbard is the key figure in Travolta's "religion," you'd think the whole matter would be a solemn affair. But it's not. Travolta appears to be actually encouraging the film's more ludicrous aspects (or does he actually believe that a film this over- the-top is to be taken seriously? Nah, can't be). On that score, Battlefield Earth is right up there with The Omega Code, the apocalyptic "thriller"

funded by Christian televangelists, which only mentioned the name of Jesus once. Like that film, this one doesn't let logic or devotion get in the way of entertainment value. Director Roger Christian is a former art director on such films as Alien and Life of Brian, and special effects supervisor Patrick Tatopolous a veteran of Dean Devlin-Roland Emmerich films, so the sets look great. And even though some of the CGI is blatantly obvious (hint: slow-motion doesn't help), it's still fun. Think Independence Day without the ponderous build-up or self-importance. Imagine how much more enjoyable the other blockbuster-of-the-moment, Gladiator, might have been if Joaquin Phoenix had addressed every one of his rivals as "Rat brain." And wonder about the sequel that has supposedly already been greenlit, featuring 25 alien races and characters with names like Brown Limper Staffor and Roof Arsebogger (cue Beavis and Butt-Head laughter). It's been a while since we've seen dumb entertainment this unpretentious, so why worry that it doesn't make a lick of sense?

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