On the surface, Battlefield Earth seems like a simple enough story. In the year 3000 an advanced alien species called the Psychlos conquers Earth in nine minutes, force the remaining humans into manual labor in a dome outside Denver, humans lead an uprising based on their ability to learn how to fly F-18 fighter jets in a matter of minutes and they live happily ever after while John Travolta is locked in a cage. Sounds promising, right?
For some reason, the movie has been on my hard drive for years. I somehow forced a friend to join me in this two hour spectacle. We both figured that there was no way the movie could live up to its terrible reputation. People were just bagging on it because of the Scientology connection and everyone else was doing it, we were sure of it. Mother of God we were wrong. This movie is absolutely, without any shred of doubt, the worst movie I have ever seen in my two decades of cinema-going existence. There isn’t a single redeeming quality to it. The acting is poor, the dialogue is so laughably bad there is no comparison except for the comments section of a newspaper website. Combine the previous two and it still wouldn’t match the complete train wreck that is the directing and costume designs.
“But Chad” you say, “I’m still not convinced. Lord Xenu would never allow such a travesty to happen. Surely your thetan levels are causing interference.” To that I say, shut the fuck up and behold these bullet points of truth:
- You could take the entire filmography of John Woo and it still wouldn’t compare to the use of slow motion in this film. The running time is two hours, I’d venture at least 45 minutes of it is spent in slow-mo. Slowmo porn.
- The ENTIRE movie is filmed at an angle. It’s as if the director just finished a class at film school where they learned about angled camera shots and decided, “Hey you know what, that was pretty cool! I’m going to make a movie where it’s nothing but that!”
-
Doing Eiffel 65 Proud 118 minutes of Dutch Angle hotness. Also, after his lesson on camera angles, he must have watched Heat because it feels like someone spread a bunch of blueberry jam on the screen. Every scene, no matter the location, has some kind of blue tint to it.
- It’s hard to actually delve into the plot of the film without going on a massive tirade. But let’s just go into some of the more ridiculous details:
- The John Travolta character, for reasons I don’t remember is forced to stay on Earth for a really long time and run the slave labor camp. He devises a plan to escape by training a human in all the practices of his alien culture and wisdom (which apparently consists of geometry). In a move no one could have predicted, the human uses his now superior intellect to lead a successful uprising.
- The humans in the movie alternate from speaking perfect English, being able to comprehend the Declaration of Independence and apply it to their current situation, and learning how to fly F-18 fighter jets after a single flight simulation, to acting like cavemen capable of only guttural moans. The difference is never explained, but that’s just part of the movie’s charm.
- On the other hand, the Psychlos’ language apparently consists of maniacal laughter and an accent that ranges from British to that character on The Simpsons who always says “Yessssssss!” And their beverage of choice is similar in look and color to radioactive ooze.
Click the image for video goodness.
There’s not much else to say. This movie is awful in almost every regard. There is nothing about it that would compel me to watch it again. No amount of weed, cocaine, sexual favors or chocolate covered raisins could get me to waste another two hours on this dreck.
