Battlefield Earth

The most infamous film in history of cinema usually aren’t the worst. Their infamy, more often than not, has less to do with its actual content and more with animosity critics, studios or certain sections of public feel towards their creators. That might explain unprecedented levels of hostility towards Battlefield Earth, 2000 science fiction epic directed by Roger Christian, a film that was not only a catastrophic box office flop, but also earned record number of Razzies and is considered one of the worst films ever made up to this day.

Much of the negativity towards Battlefield Earth has to do with its literary source, an eponymous 1982 novel by L. Ron Hubbard, controversial founder of Church of Scientology. Despite controversies and mixed reviews, the book became bestseller, thus creating impetus for film adaptation that would be ultimately be carried by John Travolta, popular actor known as one of the most prominent Scientologists in Hollywood. Although Travolta actually spent years trying to get proper budget and talents to start the project, the production of the film was often seen as example of undue influence of Church of Scientology on American film industry. Many also saw Battlefield Earth as nothing more as devious method of propaganda for organisation many consider to be dangerous cult.

The plot is set in year 3000 AD. Planet Earth has been for the past thousand years occupied by Psychlos, a race of humanoid aliens that take its natural resources ( mostly gold) and holds a handful of surviving members of the human species as slaves. There are several enclaves where people live in freedom, but only in areas affected by radiation, which is deadly to Psychlos. From one of these enclaves comes the young Johnnie Goodboy Tyler (played by Barry Pepper) to explore the world. He is captured by Psychlos, whose security chief Terl (played by Travolta) has a plan to get rich at the expense of his compatriots. To that end, he would use human workforce that will do quiet and discreet job. That is the reason why decides to teach Johnnie and his comrades the ways of Psychlo technology. He doesn’t know that Johnnie would use that newly acquired knowledge to liberate humanity and destroy evil alien oppressors.

Battlefield Earth isn’t as bad as its horrific treatment by US critics might suggest, but this is hardly huge achievement. The film is definitely worse than the original novel, which, for all its naivety and cliches, worked as an old school space opera in 1940s pulp tradition and allowed readers some light escapist entertainment. That doesn’t mean that Christian and Travolta didn’t do some things right. The most notable was decision to adapt only the first part of the novel, which takes place on Earth, because content of the whole novel would have been difficult to cram into two hours of running time. Furthermore, Travolta, who had originally intended to play protagonist, realised he was too old for that and instead opted to play chief villain Terl, delivering one of the campiest performances of his career. Cast is doing passable job, especially Forest Whitaker as Terl’s deputy Ker. Barry Pepper is, on the other hand, rather bland and not particularly convincing as protagonist with almost superhuman abilities and divine levels of luck.

On the other hand, even the much better or more inspired cast would fail to improve general impression of Battlefield Earth due to awfully inept script by Corey Mandell and J. D. Shapiro. Dialogues in the film are terrible and many plot details are laughably implausible, like human survivors, described as vritual cavemen, managing to learn how to fly and effectively use perfectly preserved Harrier jump jets. But this is nothing compared to what Roger Christian, former set designer of Star Wars films, does with his direction. The shots are confusing, poorly lit and tragically edited from strat to finish, thus preventing audience from knowing what they are actually seeing on the screen. Because of that Battlefield Earth represents complete failure and most who spend two hours watching it are likely to regret the experience.

RATING: 2/10 (-)

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