#77 Battlefield Earth (2000)

With the upcoming third worldwide protest against the cult of scientology's abuses this weekend [Video One] [Video Two], it seems timely to review Battlefield Earth. Adapted from a novel by L Ron Hubbard, and championed by actor John Travolta for over a decade. It rapidly gained the infamous status of one of the most expensive flops in cinema history, and quite rightly so.

This film should carry a public service announcement at the start reading, 'Warning - You are now entering a film where all dramatic moments take place at one third normal speed.' If all the unnecessary and tedious slow motion was cut out, it might shave the lengthy two hour runtime down to something more manageable. I should have been more wary after reading about the "special effects that are completely real" on the back of the box. Do they know what a special effect is exactly? Or were all those green laser beams filmed in claymation by Ray Harryhausen? The shame of it is I was genuinely willing to give it a chance. Having seen it about six years ago, my only recollection was of a lacklustre blockbuster; it could have still been a laugh. Rather than the farcical wreck I just watched.



In it's favour the special effects are pretty good. I like the dreadlocked, giant platform booted design of the alien Psychlos, who have taken control of Earth and enslaved it's people to strip mine the planet. Everything has been captured well in terms of picture quality and lighting. There is some occasional good humour. Mostly from scenes with Forest Whitaker and Travolta together, with Whitaker managing one of the best performances in the film (still with pretty poor material). Sadly I'm struggling to find any more compliments.

To get back to the story, we follow the trials of Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (Barry Pepper), as he searches for answers to the big questions of life and his mythology. A thousand years after the Psychlos invaded, the human race has become an endangered species. Those that remain free are simple tribes people, without knowledge of the previous days of technology. Flung far away from the Psychlos themselves. After leaving his village, Jonnie soon becomes embroiled in the affairs of a Psychlo named Terl (John Travolta). Terl is the poster boy for frustrated and deluded middle management. If his plan to embezzle his way out of many years more service on Earth ever works, you'll see him on the Psychlo home planet version of The Apprentice. Despite the set-up, any hope for some intriguing and intelligent corporate power games is short lived and glossed over in favour of some manic laughter, shouting, tongue-waggling, and Travolta camping it up. He really knows no limits here. The plot is disappointingly run of the mill, linear and quite laboriously explained to the audience.



The complete lack of attention to detail in the plot is embarrassing. For starters, are we to believe it takes a vastly superior race over 1000 years to mine the planet for what it's worth? Also, in all that time, and despite being based in North America, they never once discovered the gold reserves of Fort Knox. Fragile items like books, left exposed to 1000 years of nature are merely covered with a fine layer of dust. A 1000 year old projector works instantly, but from what electricity supply? Not to mention that a group of savage tribes-people unable to understand the technology of a camera, learn to expertly fly Harrier Jump Jets in under a week. Should I go on?

No. And neither should you. Battlefield Earth is full of holes, it's overblown, too long, too camp, and Barry Pepper is an especially uncharasmatic lead actor. It's a B-movie that somehow walked off the lot with an A-movie budget, and Hollywood has been churning out much better films for a tenth of the cost. The few superficial achievements can't outweigh the mess of a script and over the top direction and editing. Between the bad guys chuckling to themselves about how evil they are, and Pepper being chased on every available set in slow motion, I very much doubt if any viewers will be satisfied.



[2.3/10 | 27,764 votes | stats from 9th March 2008]

Until recently it had the largest number of votes of all the bottom 100 films. There has been strong agreement about the film since soon after it's release, and thus has been a permanent fixture on the list for years.

So far:
Most Fun: #79 Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch (1984)
Most Vomit Inducing - #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)

#78 Invasion of the Neptune Men (1961)

Also known as Uchu Kaisoku-sen. Time for another gem, made two years after the remarkable Prince of Space (number 88 in my little adventure), and by the same production company (Toei). It even retains the same writer Shin Morita, but they were the only scripts he ever had produced. The same fate would unsurprisingly befall Invasion's director Koji Ota; this being his only outing as a director. Being from the same stable you can expect lots of the same, but different in enough ways to unfortunately make it less fun.

The story is in essence very similar; why mess with such a winning formula? Things begin abruptly when a spaceship lands in a field in Japan, and out come some aliens wearing radiation suits, and bulbous helmets with spinning bits on top. On cue our random superhero of the hour appears and starts to defend the planet to an onlooking crowd of boys in short shorts. Our hero, played by a young Sonny Chiba (The Streetfighter, Kill Bill), uses some crude martial arts to defeat the utterly pathetic (I assume) Neptune Men. For an invasion force they aren't particularly fearsome; wandering aimlessly, very slowly, with their arms raised as if trying to traverse a treacherous bouncy castle. They even fall over without being touched.



Our hero in terms of character is quite the disappointment, as he doesn't really have one. I would have billed him in the credit list as, 'Badly dressed man with a spaceship'. He never introduces himself, instead telling the short shorts, “You boys pick one [a name]. That suits me fine.” I know of only one other profession where they claim their name is 'whatever you want it to be'. What secrets does Space Chief (as the short shorts named him) hide? My other problem with Space Chief is that he's hardly in the movie, and says very little when he does arrive. Instead we are left watching the blunderings of the government pitted in a technological struggle against the Neptune Men. Sounds more exciting than it is mind.

A large part of the plot is built on what is politely referred to as 'technobabble'. In other words, making stuff up that sounds like intelligent science. The Neptune Men use their alien gizmos to cause random phenomenons, the most impressive being to turn time backwards. If they can do that they should have won this movie by yesterday's matinee, and saved us sitting through this tripe. Special scientists try to explain the phenomena and create a shield, although none of it is explained with a shred of detail. When someone asks how a particular phenomena is possible, characters can blurt out random things that make no sense. The most bizarre of these is one technicians dramatic realization that something on his computer screen is “Roji Panty Complex”. What the heck is “Roji Panty Complex”? They don't even attempt to relate it to reality, just cut to the next scene.

As the plot continues to unfold it waivers between mundane and absolute nonsense, with brief intersections of boys in short shorts – one of which sounds like he's 30 thanks to the poor dubbing. On reflection much of the first half hour had it's moments of amusement. Unfortunately as we enter the final reel the plot has long decayed into a seemingly endless shoot 'em up between Space Chief, the government, and the Neptune Men. There is little dialogue to add any excitement to the drawn out battle sequences. Not that they haven't made an effort with some of the effects. They even used real Word War II stock footage to show Japan being blown up, which leads to an unusual cameo by Hitler no less. Nevertheless the pacing is terrible and I couldn't care less what happened to anybody. At all.



If the combined forces of Sonny Chiba, Hitler and a Robbie the Robot wind up toy, can't save a film, then there's little hope left. Too many short shorts I say.


[2.4/10 | 954 votes | stats from 4th Jan 2008]

So far:
Most Fun: #79 Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch (1984)
Most Vomit Inducing - #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)