This is truly a horrid movie. But (maybe..) worth watching once because it's an instant, modern camp classic.
Now, if you notice, I only submit bad reviews to this site, but that's because bad movies are a hobby of sorts for me. I'm one who thinks you can learn more about film from bad movies than good ones, and if there is any thuth to that, every film student's thesis should be written about Battlefield Earth.
You don't just wonder what they were thinking. You're amazed that so many people had to be so incompetent for this movie to get released. It defies comprehension. They had the budget, some (well, ok.. ) 'capable' (servicable might be a better term) actors.. so how could any outfit fail so miseraby?
It's an amazing film in all the ways that it sucks. It combines all the elements of a horrid film - employs characters which don't develop in any way, that you don't care about (or even root against), who act in very irrational or excessively stupid ways for the purpose of lengthening the film or serving the plot. The very worst part of all (and how you can do this I've no idea) is that the movie is boring and abrasive at the same time. It's like repeatedly being stabbed while still being in that place between sleep and awake where you don't really care about anything.
The crawl at the beginning, as well as the constant screen wipes, are a complete rip-off of Star Wars. I hesitate to even mention that film in this review. Worse yet, the script spends about a third of the film playing out things that you already know from the crawl! That aliens or whatever took over earth and killed most of the humans, the ones who still live are living in mostly tribal cultures. But, you're still subjected to quite a lot of them 'discovering' what is going on... which you were told before the movie even started. Why waste my time like that?
Immediately, the cheese in this movie starts to get thick. You get the Hero (tm) riding a white horse, his love interest, the crotchety old tribal elder, the Hero knowing the truth though no one believes him... blah blah blah.
Soon you start to notice that the screenplay is completely offensive to watch. In an effort to be 'cutting-eduge', a lot of the film is short from these tilted camera angles, what you would see if you tilted your head 45 degrees to one side. When it's not giving you a neck cramp from the camera angles, ripping off Star Wars with screen wipes, ripping off John Woo (poorly) with rapidly changing camera angles during combat scenes, you are treated (ahem) to gratutious use of slow-motion. Yes, there is more slow-motion here than in a whole season's worth of Monday Night Football. It's all part of a directorial scheme that really seems very patronizing to the viewer.
Details in virtually ever scene evoke that "yeah, right" reflex from the viewer. Such as, in the shopping mall where the glass is still relatively clean (after 1,000 years), characters using 20th century phrases such as "the grass is greener on the other side" or "piece of cake", which have apparently survived 1,000 years worth of dialect evolution and humanity's near extinction. Or, when Ker doesn't notice the "hidden" camera (obviously in view of anyone with half a brain, and on top of that, it makes loud noises when it zooms!). But, good thing Travolta just-so-happens to have placed these cameras in the city sewers (we all know how much excitement there is down there), or he never would have seen our hero escaping. Other intelligence-insulting garbage occurs, such as when the cave-people learn to pilot fighter jets in a week, nuclear warheads are found in still-working order 1,000 years in the future,
The alien costumes are pretty retarded, but I can't really complain because that fits the aliens, who have to be the stupidest race ever to conquer a planet and enslave a race. For example, the aliens are very intersted in gold, but didn't seem to locate Fort Knox. Or worse yet, when the enslaved humans are sent to mine gold (which, in this movie, is found in big chunks in the ground), and they come back with gold bars, the aliens think nothing of it. huh? The slang the Psychlos use is puzzling too. They call humans "man-animals", but just call dogs "dogs". They refer to air as "breath-gas", and the hidden cameras not as cameras, but "picto-cameras". Oooh! How high tech that sounds!
You get the idea. Picture a movie that tried to be Star Wars. Now, subtract any sort of compelling storyline, any well-done action scenes at all, any characters that you care about their survival. Make the hero(s) stupid and the villians even more stupid. And still, the whole comes out to be less than the sum of its parts.
Run - don't walk - away from this piece of crap. And if you like bad movies - don't bother. You can't laugh at this. It's just unwatchable. To borrow a phrase, this smacks of the Yiddish theatre in space.
To be accurate with my overall rating, I might have to use negative scientific notation. But, I'll just leave it at 0/10. I could actually feel myself becoming stupider with each passing minute.
Now, if you notice, I only submit bad reviews to this site, but that's because bad movies are a hobby of sorts for me. I'm one who thinks you can learn more about film from bad movies than good ones, and if there is any thuth to that, every film student's thesis should be written about Battlefield Earth.
You don't just wonder what they were thinking. You're amazed that so many people had to be so incompetent for this movie to get released. It defies comprehension. They had the budget, some (well, ok.. ) 'capable' (servicable might be a better term) actors.. so how could any outfit fail so miseraby?
It's an amazing film in all the ways that it sucks. It combines all the elements of a horrid film - employs characters which don't develop in any way, that you don't care about (or even root against), who act in very irrational or excessively stupid ways for the purpose of lengthening the film or serving the plot. The very worst part of all (and how you can do this I've no idea) is that the movie is boring and abrasive at the same time. It's like repeatedly being stabbed while still being in that place between sleep and awake where you don't really care about anything.
The crawl at the beginning, as well as the constant screen wipes, are a complete rip-off of Star Wars. I hesitate to even mention that film in this review. Worse yet, the script spends about a third of the film playing out things that you already know from the crawl! That aliens or whatever took over earth and killed most of the humans, the ones who still live are living in mostly tribal cultures. But, you're still subjected to quite a lot of them 'discovering' what is going on... which you were told before the movie even started. Why waste my time like that?
Immediately, the cheese in this movie starts to get thick. You get the Hero (tm) riding a white horse, his love interest, the crotchety old tribal elder, the Hero knowing the truth though no one believes him... blah blah blah.
Soon you start to notice that the screenplay is completely offensive to watch. In an effort to be 'cutting-eduge', a lot of the film is short from these tilted camera angles, what you would see if you tilted your head 45 degrees to one side. When it's not giving you a neck cramp from the camera angles, ripping off Star Wars with screen wipes, ripping off John Woo (poorly) with rapidly changing camera angles during combat scenes, you are treated (ahem) to gratutious use of slow-motion. Yes, there is more slow-motion here than in a whole season's worth of Monday Night Football. It's all part of a directorial scheme that really seems very patronizing to the viewer.
Details in virtually ever scene evoke that "yeah, right" reflex from the viewer. Such as, in the shopping mall where the glass is still relatively clean (after 1,000 years), characters using 20th century phrases such as "the grass is greener on the other side" or "piece of cake", which have apparently survived 1,000 years worth of dialect evolution and humanity's near extinction. Or, when Ker doesn't notice the "hidden" camera (obviously in view of anyone with half a brain, and on top of that, it makes loud noises when it zooms!). But, good thing Travolta just-so-happens to have placed these cameras in the city sewers (we all know how much excitement there is down there), or he never would have seen our hero escaping. Other intelligence-insulting garbage occurs, such as when the cave-people learn to pilot fighter jets in a week, nuclear warheads are found in still-working order 1,000 years in the future,
The alien costumes are pretty retarded, but I can't really complain because that fits the aliens, who have to be the stupidest race ever to conquer a planet and enslave a race. For example, the aliens are very intersted in gold, but didn't seem to locate Fort Knox. Or worse yet, when the enslaved humans are sent to mine gold (which, in this movie, is found in big chunks in the ground), and they come back with gold bars, the aliens think nothing of it. huh? The slang the Psychlos use is puzzling too. They call humans "man-animals", but just call dogs "dogs". They refer to air as "breath-gas", and the hidden cameras not as cameras, but "picto-cameras". Oooh! How high tech that sounds!
You get the idea. Picture a movie that tried to be Star Wars. Now, subtract any sort of compelling storyline, any well-done action scenes at all, any characters that you care about their survival. Make the hero(s) stupid and the villians even more stupid. And still, the whole comes out to be less than the sum of its parts.
Run - don't walk - away from this piece of crap. And if you like bad movies - don't bother. You can't laugh at this. It's just unwatchable. To borrow a phrase, this smacks of the Yiddish theatre in space.
To be accurate with my overall rating, I might have to use negative scientific notation. But, I'll just leave it at 0/10. I could actually feel myself becoming stupider with each passing minute.