A botched adventure that looks suspiciously like any number of other sci-fi tales you will have seen, and pales instantly by the comparison.
Battlefield Earth (2000)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:121
Fresh:3
Rotten:118
Average Rating:2.3/10
Consensus: Ugly, campy, and poorly acted, Battlefield Earth is a stunningly misguided, aggressively bad sci-fi folly.
Runtime: 1 hr 57 mins
Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy
Synopsis:
In the year 3000, there are no countries, no cities... Earth is a wasteland. And man is an endangered species.
A millennium ago, vicious Psychlo aliens swept down from the skies and wiped out...
In the year 3000, there are no countries, no cities... Earth is a wasteland. And man is an endangered species.
A millennium ago, vicious Psychlo aliens swept down from the skies and wiped out Earth’s entire defense force in nine minutes. Now, the handfuls of surviving humans are either used as slaves, stripping the mineral resources from the planet for use by the Psychlo race, or hiding out in remote mountain villages, primitive and cut off from the rest of humanity.
One of the most powerful figures on this new Earth is Psychlo Chief of Security Terl (JOHN TRAVOLTA), a brilliant and monstrous alien who believes he was destined to conquer galaxies.
What he does not know is that one human, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (BARRY PEPPER), is about to put a kink in his plan to exploit Earth’s human slaves for his own personal gain. A hunter who sets out to make life better for his people, Jonnie is captured and made to work as a slave in one of the Psychlos’ mines. It is here that his journey really begins – a grand adventure that will lead him to discover places and things he never knew existed.
Terl holds every advantage, with the massive strength of invincible Psychlo machinery and the vast Psychlo empire behind him. Jonnie is an insignificant animal to Terl, but he is about to turn the tables, and unleash his unfailing hope in a final showdown for the future of Earth.
Starring: John Travolta, Barry Pepper, Forest Whitaker, Kim Coates
Starring: John Travolta, Barry Pepper, Forest Whitaker, Kim Coates, Sabine Karsenti, Richard Tyson, Kelly Preston, Michael Byrne, Jim Meskimen, Christian Tessier
Director: Roger Christian
Director: Roger Christian
Screenwriter: Corey Mandell
Producer: Jonathan D. Krane, Elie Samaha, John Travolta
Composer: Elia Cmiral
Reviews for Battlefield Earth
The movie is so outrageously, spectacularly, unbelievably bad that we stare at it with some sort of appalled curiosity. It fails on so many levels that it's fascinating, although not so much that I'd sit through it again.
It doesn't help that the film's premise, which sees stoneage cavemen turn into ace fighter pilots with only a week's training, is as naive as that of the 1939 serial Buck Rogers.
Travolta, it seems, had wanted to star in a film of Battlefield Earth since first reading the novel in 1982. Only the all-seeing L Ron knows why.
You never care about anyone as they give their lives to save humanity. Ho hum. That's the worst crime in this otherwise so-bad-it's-good mess.
Despite starting off like a bad Star Trek episode, this film eventually graduates to a higher level.
"Battlefield Earth," based on a crappy 1982 sci-fi novel by cult religion dips#*t L. Ron Hubbard, is so inept and pathetic that it should forever end any questions about the validity of Hubbard's manufactured religion of Scientology.
Battlefield Earth should be shown only at maximum-security prisons when a prisoner is tossed in solitary for bad behavior.
Battlefield Earth is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It's not merely bad; it's unpleasant in a hostile way.
This Battlefield's girth is all flab, a bombastic concoction of miscued camp and underachieving action.
The first few moments of the film evoke heroism and noble struggle. After that, it's Grade A drivel.
Bad science-fiction has a new name, and it is Battlefield Earth, the early frontrunner for this year's worst movie.
If you're the kind of sci-fi fanatic who has to see every new futuristic action movie no matter how crummy it is then of course you'll check out Battlefield Earth regardless of how many cheap jokes critics crack at its expense.
Battlefield Earth has the feel of a movie made by a precocious 8-year-old with access to too many leftover costumes from Clan of the Cave Bear and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Latest News for Battlefield Earth
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