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Battlefield Earth

Battlefield Earth

List Price: $14.98
Your Price: $13.99
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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Bad,very,very bad,but funny!!
Review: If there was an unintentionally funny bad movie that could outdo Showgirls,then this is the one!! What was John Travolta thinking?? I know he's a big fan of L.Ron Hubbard,but still??The effects are from the C movies from the 80's and the acting is kind of campy.Plus,the villians aren't really that terrifying or even evil or threatening....To think that Travolta wanted to make a sequel to this a year ago..He's a talented actor as he was in Pulp Fiction,Face/Off,Get Shorty and so on,but NOT THIS STICKBURGER!! Let MST3K do this.It'll be far more enjoyable!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: It had good moments and bad moments
Review: 'Battlefield Earth' had some good moments and bad moments. I like the fact John Travolta played an evil role. He needs to play more roles like this one. Some moments were silly and stupid, but I liked being transported to another time and place. This movie did it successfully.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Special effects good, movie bad
Review: Few films in modern history have undergone a drubbing resembling the one endured by John Travolta's "Battlefield Earth." The star of "Saturday Night Fever," "Grease," and "Pulp Fiction" doubtless wished he never made a comeback when he read the reviews for this film. "Battlefield Earth" the movie, as everyone probably knows, was based on a novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Since Travolta swears fealty to Hubbard's movement and is one of its most well known members, he wanted to bring the author's vision to the big screen. There's nothing wrong with that. But in an effort to lionize the leader of a controversial creed, Travolta stumbled big time. After viewing the film, I agree with the abuse critics heaped on this picture, but only to a certain extent. "Battlefield Earth" is an atrocity, a mind blasting heap o' badness best left rotting in a bargain bin at the local video store. I am not willing, however, to categorize this picture as one of the worst films in cinematic history. Fans of B movies will agree with me on this point. There are PLENTY of films out there far worse than this one.

In the year 3000, the planet earth is no longer a safe home for human beings. Some thousand years earlier, a race of hostile aliens from the planet Psychlo invaded our world and destroyed our civilization in a matter of minutes. For the next millennia, these rapacious invaders have systematically reduced the surviving humans to a state of stone age existence. In fact, the human race is dying out due to the continuing harassment of the Psychlos, who have built a base on the planet in order to mine the most precious resource known to the aliens: gold. When not hunting down humans for sport, the Psychlos plot against each other to better their position in their social hierarchy. Earth as we know it today is long gone, but there is one man who may yet rise against Psychlo tyranny and restore humanity to its rightful place on earth. This man is none other than Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (Barry Pepper), a mouthy upstart who frequently violates village rules about wandering into dangerous Psychlo territory. Predictably, Jonnie soon roams too far from the safety of his community and finds himself captured by these aliens.

The leader of the Psychlos on earth, and the creature who will soon face down Jonnie and his rapidly growing band of resistance fighters, is Terl (John Travolta). Terl is a conniving thug, always shouting and threatening his underlings--especially his assistant Ker (Forest Whitaker)--whenever he isn't brown nosing the brass during their infrequent visits to the planet. As for humans, the Psychlos never take them seriously. They treat them like animals, brutalize them, and keep them locked up in huge cages. Terl chuckles over these pitiful brutes, never realizing for a second that these "animals" are capable of complex emotions and rational thought. At some point in the film, Terl decides Jonnie possesses an ability to learn and allows the little man to plug into a machine that teaches a potential enemy everything about languages, mathematics, geometry, and weaponry. In a series of illogical leaps that stagger the imagination, Jonnie and his fellow barbarians manage to wage a successful war against Terl and the Psychlo invaders. Heck, these guys, who just minutes before could barely figure out how to sharpen a stick, successfully plan, organize, and launch a massive assault against alien hegemony. The wonder of it all!

The first part of the film had me wondering what all of the fuss was about. There were a few obvious problems to contend with, such as the chase scene in a thousand year old mall where Jonnie crashes through several panes of glass without cutting himself to ribbons (let alone the unbelievability that these glass panes could survive for a millennia with nary a crack), but these problems were little different from thousands of other movies. A few parts of the picture, particularly the very cool special effects used to create the information transmission pod that Jonnie uses to learn about the Psychlos, looked great. Even the battle sequences in the grand finale were far above average as far as science fiction movies go. So what is the problem with "Battlefield Earth," the problem that turns the stomachs of the most jaded film critics? It's simple, really. Travolta's vanity flick is dumb, even dumber than most big budget films these days.

The biggest problem is the script. There are so many plot holes in "Battlefield Earth" that even I could have done a better job. The worst stupidities occur towards the end of the film when Jonnie recruits primitive humans in order to wage war against the invaders. Tyler and his allies breeze around the former United States like they owned the place, openly planning for war against their enemies. Totally unbelievable are the scenes where Jonnie finds thousand year old military depots loaded to the brim with pristine jet fighters, tanks, bombs, firearms, and nuclear weapons. When looking for a specific page in a manual about arming a nuclear weapon, one of the illiterate human beings bumps an overhead projector, the machine comes on, and there is the one page necessary to use the nukes. Impressive coincidence or major plot disaster? You be the judge. When I saw tribal members using flight simulators so they could learn to fly jets, I wrote the whole movie off as a lost cause. These examples are only a few of the serious problems that plague the picture; I won't even mention the annoying cinematography, the ridiculous appearance of the Psychlos, or the endless sci-fi clichés that appear regularly. Only lovers of disaster films and B movie nightmares should waste time viewing this crud.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Makes Ed Wood Look Like A Filmmaking Genius
Review: This film should get zero stars, but for some reason Amazon apparently isn't that cruel so you have to at least give it one star.

After decades of being celebrated as the worst filmmaker ever, and having "Plan 9 from Outer Space" occupy that lofty position of worst film ever, and his film may be in danger of forever losing that status. I actually paid to see this film when it was in theaters, even though I was well aware of how it was being slammed as the worst film of the year at the time. And, boy, it easily was the worst film of that year and maybe any other.

Unlike Ed Wood's films, which at least always had this weird energy about them, this movie is just bad in every possible way. And its not one of those "so-bad-its-good," like the first Charlie's Angels film. No this is just bad all the around and worse, it's plain boring and stupid. It doesn't even merit considerationm as being campy, highI've never read the book, but if the source material is this awful, how did they ever sell more than few copies of that book?

Even more interesting is the fact that John Travolta has occasionally declared that he intends to make a sequel. If that happens I have a feeling John will be ponying up all the money out of his own pocket. And let's talk about Travolta. Has he ever done a worse acting job? Was he just on a mission to once again tank his career so that he could get around to making a decent film and claim another career revival?

Everyone attached to this film should be embarrassed. and talk about plot holes! At one point one of the aliens makes a statement along the lines of when they invaded earth, earth's defenses only lasted nine minutes. Yet late in the film, when the humans learn how to fly fighter jets, the humans take them on in the exact same equipment that had not be sufficient enough to make a war last more than nine minutes. And win!

Watch this movie only if you want to punish yourself or if, like me, curiosity gets the better of you. But whatever you do, try to watch it for free so you don't feel totally ripped off when it ends. I'm still kicking myself.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: IT SUCKS
Review: Why Johnny? Why? Why did you make the worst Science Fiction film ever? IT SUCKS

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: It's worse (much worse) than you think
Review: I bought this when it first came out on DVD because of the "Worst film of the year hype." It was on special and I just had to know if it was as bad as everyone claimed. It is, and the experience of watching it left me so dumbfounded that I have been unable to write a review for almost three years. I've finally broken free of the Battlefield Earth spell and here's my take on the movie...

How horrible is this film? To date there are 372 Amazon reviews and 176 are of the 1 star variety. Just 65 gritted their teeth and gave it 5 stars, and that tells me that either there aren't many Scientologists or that even they couldn't line up behind this trainwreck of celluloid.

But the fact that this movie is so wretched is only half the story...every studio cranks out a stinker once in a while, but the budget of this disaster is what makes this such a truly god-awful experience.

Here are some other classic lousy films whose combined budgets don't equal that of Battlefield Earth:

Freddy Got Fingered
Dumb and Dumberer
House of 1000 Corpses
Corky Romano
Dude, Where's My Car?
From Justin to Kelly
The Real Cancun.

Yep, those flops together cost less to make than Battlefield Earth.

I can't totally condemn the film though. No, this is something everyone with a sense of humor should watch. The over-the-top performance of John Travolta, the massive plot holes, poor editing, ridiculous story, and absolutely horrendous dialogue have become legendary in the world of bad cinema.

So, grab a case a beer and some buddies and enjoy the unintentional humor thet permeates this movie. And if you have to make a trip to the bathroom during the viewing, don't worry...you won't miss anything.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: How does stuff like this get greenlit?
Review: Oh what can you say, everyone else has already summarised it... without a doubt one of the worst films of all time. Based on an equally banal book. If you see it don't say you weren't warned! Not even so bad that it's good, it's past that, it's just plain bad. Bad acting, directing, pacing, a ridiculous story and plot holes the size of Jupiter.

On the plus side the disc makes a great coaster.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Will movies never match their respective books?
Review: Amazon resells reviews and you don't get a dime from it!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: 3 and a half stars,A cool science fiction movie
Review: Lots of people said this movie is the worst movie ever,it is not the worst movie ever it has a good plot aliens and slaves take over and battle.John Travolta does a alright job as Terl,the evil ruler of the slaves,while Forest Whitaker,Barry Pepper,and Kelly Preston give alright performances.Battlefield Earth is the best sci/fi movie since Species,Aliens,and Red Planet.the DVD and VHS are alright with extras on the DVD,but on back of the DVD and VHS it says edited for home video,it edits the funny moments from TV,so record or watch it on TV,L. Ron Hubbard adapted this movie from his book.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: It's really that bad!
Review: And that just might be an understatement. If there was any way of rating this movie 0 stars, I would have... Here's the story in a nuttshell... The alliens took over the world (naturally). About 50 alliens (that's how many I've counted) run the earth, and exploit it. A bunch of postapocalyptic cavemen who managed to survive for a thousand years on a polluted planet decide that they've had enough. So they wipe the dust off 1000 years old airplanes, and kick some allien butt, destrying the alliens' home planet while they're at it... I'm really disappointed that Forrest Whitaker accepted a role in this film... For the most part of the movie I wasn't too sure whether I was watching SF or a parody... If you prefer the latter, might I suggest the "Spaceballs"? :))


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