Battlefield Earth Movie Review

Battlefield Earth (2000)

Battlefield Earth on Amazon Video
Written by: Corey Mandell and J.D. Shapiro (screenplay), L. Ron Hubbard (novel)
Directed by: Roger Christian
Starring: John Travolta, Forest Whitaker, Barry Pepper, Kim Coates
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer

Plot
It's the year 3000 A.D. and the Earth lost to the alien race Psychlos. Humanity is enslaved by these gold-thirsty tyrants, who are unaware that their "man-animals" are about to ignite a rebellion.

Verdict
It's amazing how many poor creative decisions were made. In every scene you will see something that makes you wonder how someone saw or did that and then thought, "This is good." That, and no one stopped them. The story is boring and underdeveloped, the characters are flat, and it's impressive just how bad all of the actors are. The director managed to get absolutely terrible performances from everyone. It's unintentionally comedic, but that doesn't make it worth watching.
Skip it.

Review
This is based on the 1,050 page book by L. Ron Hubbard, published in 1982. Hubbard is the founder, or writer of, Scientology which he crafted in 1952.

Famed Scientology supporter John Travolta wanted to make this movie for years, taking a pay cut and putting in millions of his own dollars. He hoped this would be the first of two movies. He originally was going to play the part of Johnnie Goodboy but aged out of the role. Travolta wanted Quentin Tarantino to direct, but Tarantino declined.

Almost every scene is at a Dutch angle because the director wanted the movie to look like a comic book.

It's one of the biggest flops ever. At the 2000 Golden Raspberry Awards it received seven "Razzies", including Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Travolta), Worst Supporting Actor (Pepper), Worst Supporting Actress (Kelly Preston), Worst Director (Christian), Worst Screenplay (Mandell and Shapiro) and Worst Screen Couple (Travolta and "anyone sharing the screen with him.").

I watched this on Sony Crackle, a free streaming service with commercials. Crackle's descrition is,  "John Travolta's dreadlocks colonize earth in this adaptation." That seems about right.

This screen wipe appears far too often.

I'm not sure I've seen a movie make so many poor creative decisions. It's like this movie set out to be bad. This kind of stuff doesn't just happen. Someone meant to do this. From the amateurish screen wipes to the Dutch angles, frequently slow motion shots, and strange color changes. All of the acting is bad. The dialog is ridiculous.

Barry Pepper plays Johnnie Goodboy. (Note the slight angle of the image.)

The first few scenes seem to be missing. We have no context for Barry Pepper's character Johnnie Goodboy riding a horse in a canyon. This movie avoids any action and just tells us what's going on. It would be more powerful if it showed us how Goodboy and his tribe live. The opening is B movie garbage. The first scene could be Goodboy searching for medicine.

There are numerous lapses in logic. How did people maintain language but lose knowledge of everything else? How did they never encounter the ruins of civilization? The only explanation I can come up with is that all the adults were killed when the Psychlos invaded. Only children were left, devoid of mankind's knowledge and afraid to venture into the world. Who knows.

The majority of this movie is framed at a slight angle. I don't see how that made the final cut, through the director, cinematographer, camera operators, and anyone else on set. This entire movie is baffling. Since Travolta had such a big stake did he force everyone to succumb to his vision of this movie?

It turns out after one thousand years cities are intact. With that how was knowledge no retained? One thousand years is a long time. I think the city would be much more ruined.

I'd give this movie a pass if was a low budget B movie, but it isn't. The music is obnoxious, the movie changes colors when the alien Psychlos are introduced and there is more than one big "Noooooo!" from characters.
I don't know if Travolta is over-acting or under-acting. His acting is terrible, but he delivers his lines so over the top. Most of his dialog is fake maniacal laughter.
Forest Whitaker is a good actor, but if I had only ever seen him in this I would assume they pulled him randomly off the street. The dialog is boring. It's the most obvious responses every time.
And there is just so much slow motion.

The orchestrator of the on screen madness, Travolta/Terl (Note the angle of the image).

The plot of this is middling. Travolta plays Terl, an alien that wants to get back to his home world and resorts to deceit and bribery to do it. We get a lot of painful exposition about his plan, an explanation almost as unnecessary as this movie.
Terl didn't count on Johnnie Goodboy, humanity's savior. He's only a hero because the movie wants him to be. He's forced into stupid situations where he has to win.

Why do the Psychlos covet gold? If it was fuel or a mineral unknown to man I could buy that, but we don't even know what the Psychlos do with gold.

Terl's plan involves giving Goodboy all of humanity and Psychlo's knowledge. Terl is an idiot. He thinks humans are incapable of anything but manual labor despite how many times Goodboy has proven him wrong. Watching this on Crackle, I've never welcomed commercials before, but in this case they weer a welcome distraction.

Goodboy and his friends are forced by Terl to mine gold, but instead learn how to fly planes by a simulator that still has power despite no functioning power stations and no infrastructure. Even better, the fuel is still good.

How did anybody get work after this movie? What is wrong with everyone involved in this movie? This movie is interminable. This movie is so stupid.  It's a plot ripped from a twelve year old's fever dream with stupid dutch angles, annoying screen wipes, and terrible dialog.

Watching this as an unintentional comedy