REVIEW: Battlefield Earth

What the hell?

That first sentence pretty well sums up my thoughts on the movie under the Skeeter Spotlight today. First, a word of explanation... This was to have been my "Self-Mutilation" movie (Where a Bad Movie is "gifted to you by another denzien of the B-Movie Message Board.) Mine was to be "The Ewok Adventure" or "The Water Babies" (Ahh, cutesy family friendly films... thank you Billydaking... you sadist!) However, I found myself in somewhat of a finacial predicament that week. To put it bluntly, I was skint. Broke. Bones of my bum. No dineros. Even a $3 movie hire seemed excessive. So, I put that review off a week, and instead turned to a film I'd taped a week or so back. One I'd been putting off, given it's formidable reputation. And so, without further ado, come with me to;

BATTLEFIELD EARTH (2001)

Firstly, I'd like to point out that this will not be one of my scene-by-painful-scene recaps of the the film. (After all, there's TWO of those at jabootu.com and I couldn't improve on those if I tried. Instead this will be more of a diary of my Battlefield Earth Cinematic Viewing Experience, along with my list of "What Th' Hell?" moments and questions I'd like to put to one Mr J. Travolta. Scarily, the film was made in part by "Franchise Pictures"... Hell, if this get a SEQUEL, let alone becomes a franchise, I'd take it as a sign of the Apocolypse...

9pm-ish. First off, I checked I had the necessary equipment to help me through this film. (The video tape, remote control, notepad and large quantities of alcoholic beverages. I also drank a cold Mac's lager an hour before to help cushion the impact slightly.) Finally, I took a deep breath and pressed PLAY. The opening shot is accompanied by a caption that declares "Man Is an Endangered Speices."

And so it began...

Questions and "What the Hell?" Moments

Is it a rule that all Post-Apocolyptic heros' do that Brown Leather/Long Hair combo? For a moment there I thought I was seeing Kris Kristofferson in "Planet Of The Apes"...Did the Long-Haired Heros' father get the best deal by dying before the film started, or what? At least he didn't have to live through the forthcoming dialogue...

Hasn't the slow-mo "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" scene on hearing of a loved one's passing been done to death?
Wow, a central wipe 2 minutes and 1 second into the film. That's gotta be a record...

Okay, so this campfire scene is giving us some vauge backstory, but why is the Long-Haired Hero prancing around like a Native American on a bad acid trip?

Ah, the first tilted camera shot, 3 minutes in. This is going to be a loooooong night.

Right, so the hero is riding off from the village. Anyone know why again?

SLOW-MO! (Boy, this first 4 minutes and 26 seconds has had EVERTHING!

Is he waving to his girlfriend, or giving the village a Nazi salute?

From arid desert to lush green in one edit. Fast horse....

Hey, he tried to kill Pufnstuff!

That mini-golf course still looks pretty good after 1000 years. Who among us hasn't PLAYED a course that was less well-maintained?

Why are those spear-wielding guys grunting like spooked marmosets?

Geez, seven minutes in and I'm already confused as hell... that's a new record!

CENTRAL WIPE!

Ah, a blasted and ruined city to continue that "Post-Apocolypse" theme... either that or they've travelled to modern-day South-Central LA...

Hey gave him a piece of glass. How nice, although you'd think in a war-blasted city, they'd be tons of it lying around...

If anyone sings "Kumbaya" around the shopping-mall campfire, I'm outta here...

Oh, my God we're being attacked by shoddy laser-blast effects! RUN!

Speaking of which, would it have killed them to make the guns consistent? One shot makes a ripple pattern on a wall, the next shot violently re-arranges the furniture and a third just passes through a human body without making a hole. PICK ONE!

Maybe they have multiple settings? "Captain, have you men set the phasers to "Annoy"!"

They killed the horse! Bastards!

Was it really required to show multiple slow-mo shots of of hero smashing through the (Remarkably still intact) plate glass windows? It was hardly on the level of Jackie Chan leaping off a building without a stuntman...

CENTRAL WIPE!

Man, brown leather clothing and long hair is in this season... all the best-dressed prisoners are wearing it.

Okay, they've been flown to a ruined city with unbreathable air. A cross between Kabul and Mexico City, then?

Now, how exactly do external nose-clips aid you in breathing poisoned air?

Okay, I can buy our Hero grabbing the gun, but was changing the setting from STUN to KILL just a wacky co-incidence?

Why did Our Hero make the Mating Marmoset noise again when he shot the Lumpy-Headed Alien?

Enter the Travolta!

Okay, so you're told a human shot one of you alien buddies, and to prove it couldn't happen you give the human a gun. Yes, John Travoltas' charachter is obviously the films' Designated Bonehead.

"Skull-bone"? Yeesh...

Actual Dialogue "But he might shoot me!" "Yes, and I might grow a third arm!" Say WHAT?

Okay, at this point (15 minutes, 50 seconds in) I cracked my first in-movie beer to help dull the pain. Ahh, Stella Artois, I suckle at your cold, malty nipple once more.

*Ahem*

So he's not a human, he's a "man-animal"... (And so the parade of Unnecceary Hyphenations begins...)

And now the man-animal's killed another guard. Let's all stand around and laugh maniaclly about that. Ha-ha-HAAA!

By the way, the movies' been going nearly 20 minutes... is it too much to ask that we find out what the heros name is at some stage?

CENTRAL WIPE!

Okay, so the guy that gave a human prisoner a gun and got a guard killed is the "Best Security Chief" in the universe. I'd hate to see the other applicants...

Boy, this conversation with the bartender is eating up plenty of running time, isn't it. I guess JT wanted us to know he's EVVVIILL!

CENTRAL W... Ahh, the joke is dead...

So, the Japanese can make a TV that fits in a wristwatch, but 1000 years later, these alien guys need a transporter the size of football field to bring three guys in. How did they even manage to conquer us in the first place?

Actual Dialogue: "...this planet is the ugliest craphole in the universe". Alien vernacular must have evolved parallel to our own...

Even though this guy is complaining that the gravity is all wrong, it doesn't seem to hamper his walking one little bit...

Humans are Man-animals, but dogs aren't dog-animals? Whaddup wid dat?

So everyone on Planet Psychlo is a scheming, back-stabbing bastard. Makes you wonder how they manage to co-operate long enough to defeat us...

Ha ha, JT, you're stuck on our planet for fifty more cycles! Whatever that means...

Y'know, if L. Ron Hubbards religion is on a par with his sci-fi, I'm surprised he has ANY devotees...

Great, now we have to listen to Whiny, High-Pitched Faux-Shakespearean Travolta.

No, that shot of Planet Psychlo wasn't redundant in the slightest.

They feed their prisoners guacamole? Sign me up!

That's the noisest zoom on a security camera I've ever heard!

Better zoom out, you'll put someones' eye out with that thing...

Hey, they gave Forrest Whittaker some actual dialogue! Not GOOD dialogue, of course...

Oh, so it's a "picto-cam"... Fine, good, if you need me I'll be at my writo-desk, with my butto-ass planted on my sitto-chair..

Travolta must be PO'ed... check out the dramatic teeth-clenching he's doing.

I'll float off the subject quickly here, as it was at this point that I decided to feed my cats. I let them both in, went into the kitchen to pick up their bowls, turned, and suddenly was suffering from a sharp pain in my right ankle. It was caused by my aging, one-eyed tabby "Popeye", who had inadvertantly run headlong into my leg with her "skull-bone" in her rush to be fed. The movie was put on hold for a few minutes a made sure I wasn't dealing with a concusssed cat. She was fine. Just thought I'd share...
[Future Skeeter: Sadly, Popeye passed on to the Big Ball O' String in the Sky some eight months later. She is much missed by myself, Dawn and Sasha the Pycho Tabby.]

Okay, so Travolta wants to use humans to mine gold from an irradiated area. It's not much of a plot, but it'll do...

Ah, Alien Drivers' Ed must be in session... mind that chimney! D'oh!

Alien leg-irons... they'll last a lifetime if someone doesn't try hitting them with a rock.

Ooh, the semi-dramatic "Slow-Mo Run Through The Toxic Air" scene.

Geez, Forrest is playing a whiny little toady in this one...

And this would be Travoltas' "Overly Camp Evil Guy" act...

You know a man is evil when he sets you up to take the rap for his crimes, then informs you about the set-up a few minutes later...

Ooh, Sewer-Cam... Nice guess on JT's part that there would be a chase scene happening in that particular tunnel today...

Okay, HeroGuy crawls through a vent and suddenly he's in the Good Air Zone? How the hell does that happen?

And didn't he just hold his breath for about six minutes or so?

Travolta just killed his henchaliens. I guess he is EVVVIILL after all...

Okay, let's get this straight. You want to put the Hero Guy on a "teaching machine", but first you want to find his favourite food to have "leverage" over him. So you're going to let him escape, and watch him on hidden cameras to see what he eats. This must be Plan Nine from the Moron Alien Handbook...

Here's a thought... why not use the teaching machine to teach him the languagem then ASK HIM what his favourite food is? Just a thought...

Okay, the Heros still has his pointy piece of glass. After all those "action" sequnces, shouldn't it have been pulverised by now?

Actual Dialogue: "They're eating the rat. And they could have chosen anything!" Sure, like the walls, or their boots, or each other, maybe? How did this guy get his high-ranking job again?

Memo: Invent a less noisy Button-Picto-Cam before putting next Moronic Plan into effect...

Hey the Heros' name is Jonny! And we found out only 50 minutes into the film...

So this Psychlo teaching machine is designed to teach Psychlo. As the Psychlos treat all other races as animals, that seems kind of pointless to me...

The Best Secuity Chief in the universe just left a roomful of prisoners totally unguarded. Way to go, Bozo...

Jonny decides to teach the others geometry. Smart prisoner: "I though this was supposed to help us escape". Jonny: "It will!". Ummm, care to explain how knowing about equalateral triangles aids your escape plans, Einstein?

So the Chief of Securitys' weapons locker code is his ID number backwards? That's the sci-fi equivalent of leaving a key under the welcome mat...

Why are we back at Jonnys tribe? And why does the tirbal leader have an English accent? Enquiring minds want to know!

Hey, they DIDN'T kill the horse!

So much for the rebellion... all the guns are unloaded! Ha! The Irony! Of course, since we never see anyone load or unload a gun at anytime in the movie, we'll have to take the scriptwriters word for it...

Okay, Travolta the Idiotic Alien just let the leader of an attempted coup loose in a library to peruse to wisdom of the ancients. Good move, dude...

Okay, so when the Pschlos invaded, the entire Earth miltary capitulated in nine minutes. Remember that factoid for the climax...

Ooh, cow-animals!

Wait, if there are wild cows wandering around, why is everybody eating rat?

I think "Bad Taste" did the "Animal Meets Powerful Weapons" scene better... Baaaaa... BOOM!

Look out, it's the attack of Captain Badgerhead!

Oh, man, it's like a scene from "Braveheart". Except William Wallace didn't make an impassioned speech exorting the Scots to hand over their weapons and surrender...

Okay, I buy that Travolta caught Jonnys girlfriend, but how did he know that was Jonny in the scrawled drawing. "Hmmm... long hair, brown leather clothes, wooden acting style. That's him, all right..."

Oh look, a head-explody device.

Great, a MASS "NOOOOOoooooooo!" scene. (In slow-mo and in mime!)

At this point (65 minutes in) I decided the time had come for something stronger. Armed with a Carribean Cream and milk, I returned to the couch for the Big Finale. Sadly, it was still forty minutes-plus away...

Question: Why did Jonny give that guy a lock of his hair? Is this some sort of male-bonding thing that happens in prison?

And why has no Psychlo ever bothered to learn English? You're there for 1000 years, someone should have picked up a smattering...

I hear that's Kelly Prestons' real tongue...

More double-crossing... we get it, they're EVIL, right?

So Travolta is teaching Jonny to fly through an outtake from "Tron"?

Ahh, the gold is in an area of selective radiation... It only effects the Psychlos, it seems...

Did they cut the line of dialogue where a prisoner responds to Jonnys highly improbable plan by shouting "ARE YOU @#$&ing MIND?"

Okay, we flew to Washington. Like to tell me why we flew to Washington, Jonny?

And now we're at Fort Knox. Boy, we get around...

Gee, three men to steal the gold in Fort Knox. They should be done in... ooh, 15 years or so...

And how come no-one else stole the gold, seeing as you can just walk inside and start picking it up?

By the way, why does Travolta even WANT gold?

So he believes the man-animals when they tell him they smelted the gold into bricks. In the wilderness. In a week. And the Dickhead of The Day award goes to...

"Piece of Cake"? Where the snot did that come from?

Okay, now we'll take the entire crew to Texas(!!) to learn to fly Harrier jumpjets(!!!) in a week(!!!!!!!!!!) *snap* [sound of the string suspending my disbelief breaking]

Maybe these jets are related to the Ezy-Fly F-18s from "Independence Day"?

Gold in coffins... that re-defines "dead weight"

Why did Jonny make the Mating Marmoset noise, when he could have just given has signal in English. No Pyschlo speaks it, remember?

Good guess, Mr Travolta, it WAS the bartender! But how the hell did you know?

Big Battle Scene GO!

"There's five guards moving towards you fast!" Geez, if that's fast, the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade is a virtual sprint...

Man, these guards couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if they were inside it at the time...

"Shoot to kill sir?" "No, just shoot the debris around the man-animal for dramatic slo-mo effects!"

Dude, you're the worst kamikaze pilot I've ever seen!

Ummm, wouldn't the pressure difference make the glass blow out or be sucked in after it was breached?

Great, not one but TWO Noble Sacrifices for the Good of Humanity...

Judas Q Priestly, that's one hell of a nuke! The Death Star didn't explode that fast...

Oh, Lord, don't tell me they're setting up the ending for a sequel! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo!


And thankfully, that was that.

Skeeters Mini Wrap-up: Well, I saw it and survived. Midgets in fuzzy costumes should be a breeze, now....

Future Steve: Eventually, (After MANY strange looks from video store employees) I discovered that "The Ewok Adventure" is no longer available in West Auckland. But watching the Curse of Travolta was Self-Mutilating enough, methinks!