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#62 - Battlefield Earth
Roger Christian, 2000
In a post-apocalyptic future where humanity is under the subjugation of an alien race, one human becomes the leader of the human resistance.
It's always interesting to watch a non-comedy film that has earned a reputation for being one of the worst films of all-time, especially when it's one as out-and-out reviled as Battlefield Earth. Taking place in the year 3000, it shows an Earth where humanity is an endangered species whose few remaining members live in primitive tribes that live in fear of gods who come from the sky. When one tribal (Barry Pepper) opts to disregard superstition and go exploring, his actions attract the attention of the alien race that has overtaken the planet, especially the power-hungry alien (John Travolta) in charge of Earth. When Travolta is passed over for promotion and reassignment, he decides to step up his operation in a way that involves Pepper, whose exceptional abilities challenge the aliens' existing perceptions of humans as mindless animals and leads Travolta to think that he can use this new knowledge to his advantage. Of course, Travolta's evil plan might just have a weakness that Pepper and his human comrades can exploit...
While Battlefield Earth may disregard virtually every tenet of quality film-making and storytelling, it at least does so in a way that is sporadically interesting or entertaining. The film does have a unique visual style thanks to the constant use of Dutch angles and curtain-like scene transitions, but that's easily undone by the decidedly horrible effects work on display throughout the film (most prominently in one scene where Travolta drops a dissenting human off a cliff, which looked so utterly amateurish that I had to rewind it to be certain of what I had seen). The same goes for the make-up and costuming used to create the villainous aliens, resulting in some shoddy-looking Klingon knock-offs where any tweaks such as dreadlocks or bigger legs are for the worst. The plot is nonsensical in many incredibly baffling ways and it's carried out by performers who are divided into wooden humans and hammy aliens. Travolta's scenery-chewing is almost transcendent in how excessive it ends up being, though Forest Whitaker does his best to keep up in his role as Travolta's long-suffering subordinate. The absurdity only goes so far in a film as long as this one and by the time the film approaches a bombastic free-for-all climax it's pretty much exhausted any amusement one might get at humans making monkey noises or aliens cackling evilly. As a result, Battlefield Earth earns its place as one of the worst movies ever made but at least it's a bizarre semi-watchable fiasco instead of a hatred-inducing insult to the medium of cinema. That alone earns it half a popcorn box and therefore gives it leverage over a film like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
Roger Christian, 2000
In a post-apocalyptic future where humanity is under the subjugation of an alien race, one human becomes the leader of the human resistance.
It's always interesting to watch a non-comedy film that has earned a reputation for being one of the worst films of all-time, especially when it's one as out-and-out reviled as Battlefield Earth. Taking place in the year 3000, it shows an Earth where humanity is an endangered species whose few remaining members live in primitive tribes that live in fear of gods who come from the sky. When one tribal (Barry Pepper) opts to disregard superstition and go exploring, his actions attract the attention of the alien race that has overtaken the planet, especially the power-hungry alien (John Travolta) in charge of Earth. When Travolta is passed over for promotion and reassignment, he decides to step up his operation in a way that involves Pepper, whose exceptional abilities challenge the aliens' existing perceptions of humans as mindless animals and leads Travolta to think that he can use this new knowledge to his advantage. Of course, Travolta's evil plan might just have a weakness that Pepper and his human comrades can exploit...
While Battlefield Earth may disregard virtually every tenet of quality film-making and storytelling, it at least does so in a way that is sporadically interesting or entertaining. The film does have a unique visual style thanks to the constant use of Dutch angles and curtain-like scene transitions, but that's easily undone by the decidedly horrible effects work on display throughout the film (most prominently in one scene where Travolta drops a dissenting human off a cliff, which looked so utterly amateurish that I had to rewind it to be certain of what I had seen). The same goes for the make-up and costuming used to create the villainous aliens, resulting in some shoddy-looking Klingon knock-offs where any tweaks such as dreadlocks or bigger legs are for the worst. The plot is nonsensical in many incredibly baffling ways and it's carried out by performers who are divided into wooden humans and hammy aliens. Travolta's scenery-chewing is almost transcendent in how excessive it ends up being, though Forest Whitaker does his best to keep up in his role as Travolta's long-suffering subordinate. The absurdity only goes so far in a film as long as this one and by the time the film approaches a bombastic free-for-all climax it's pretty much exhausted any amusement one might get at humans making monkey noises or aliens cackling evilly. As a result, Battlefield Earth earns its place as one of the worst movies ever made but at least it's a bizarre semi-watchable fiasco instead of a hatred-inducing insult to the medium of cinema. That alone earns it half a popcorn box and therefore gives it leverage over a film like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.