BATTLEFIELD EARTH

WARNER BROS.

RELEASED 2 June 2000

For film historians, this movie is notable for two reasons. It ended the second coming of John Travolta (worse was to follow in the shape of ‘Be Cool’), and it was also the end of the big Warner Brothers slump that saw them release some of the worst summer blockbusters in history, with ‘Batman and Robin’ in 1997, ‘The Avengers’ in 1998, ‘Wild Wild West’ in 1999, and finally this in 2000. That was some bad outfit!

Subtitled ‘A Saga of the Year 3000’ (no, I never knew that either), John Travolta and Forest Whitaker play aliens called Psychlo’s who have enslaved the human race and are using them as cheap labour. If they’re so powerful, why do they need human workers, can’t they get robots to do their work? Perhaps this was explained in the film, although I doubt it. Needless to say, a human called Tyler (Barry Pepper, who managed to maintain his acting career after this near-fatal train wreck) rises up against the aliens and blows them all away in a rocket ship, if I remember correctly.

I’m only writing this review nine years later as it’s been too painful to recollect up until now. Travolta wears foot-high boots, has long dreadlocks, and has a tube up his nose. How on ‘Battlefield’ Earth he couldn’t see what a disaster this movie was going to be says quite a lot about his judgement. And about his belief in Scientology. Which was founded by L Ron Hubbard, who wrote ‘Battlefield Earth’. So there you go.

Oh, one last thing. The film is frequently funny for all the wrong reasons, but it’s also extremely dull, and the special effects are boring too. Don’t even bother picking it up in a pound shop. Buy a copy of the ‘Big Issue’ instead.

ONE OUT OF FIVE