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One of the most horrendous films I have EVER seen. "Leprechaun" used to be at the top of this list until BE came along. This wretched vomit of a film robbed me of 2 hours of my life which I will never recapture. Bastards.
Film Review Courtesy of Dark Horizons
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action
Cast: John Travolta, Barry Pepper, Forest Whitaker, Kim Coates, Sabine Karsenti, Kelly Preston
Synopsis: Based on the best-selling novel by L. Ron Hubbard. In the early 21st century, the Earth was quickly taken over by a giant, gas-breathing alien race known as the Psychlos who quickly destroyed Earth's defenses and modern civilisation. Almost a thousand years later, one of a handful of the surviving humans decides to venture outside his protected and safe little community in the Rocky mountains. Soon he becomes the only hope for mankind when the Psychlos, almost finished mining out the planet's resources, determine to exterminate all life.
Pros:
Some Cool FX
Travolta
Some decent humour
Cons:
Poor script
Confusing pace
Gaping plot holes
Film Review: After a huge year last year, the sci-fi genre has really taken a back seat with "Mission to Mars" being the first major studio pic in the area. "Battlefield: Earth" is the second one to come alongand while itss a big step above M2M, its not likely to challenge "Gladiator" at the box-office. Yes it has lots of action & FX, but its script lacks cohesion.
On the upside a very suprising thing is that the filmmakers seem to have really squeezed the $50 million budget to produce a film which looks like it almost cost twice as much, so credit to the company and crew behind that. Performance wise most of the actors basically walk through their roles which are almost amazingly one-note at times. Johnny Tyler is the hero who decides it is his job to save the Earth from continued dominance by the Psychlos. These aliens are watchable simply because they are over the top, while the humans are pathetic - barely talking neanderthals who seem to rally at the drop of a club behind anyone who can string more than two coherent sentences together.
As I was saying though the aliens are the more fascinating to watch and Travolta once again does one of his signature one-liner villains. Despite the repetitive dialogue ("leverage" anyone?), his enthusiasm for the work does shine through the repetitive and sometimes annoying out loud laughing. Whitaker also does OK as the not too bright alien sidekick character with ambitions over his boss. As villains go though the Psychlos aren't frightening or even particularly evil aside from one or two moments (eg. the cow scene). They rely on that kind of 'superiority complex' humour used by the character of 'Q' a lot in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" but none of the aliens here even approach that character's level of wit or intensity.
The story is quite weak, with the pace all over the place. From the start we're immediately thrust into the action without any real warning and don't understand what's going on. Then things slow to a grinding "gold mining" subplot in the second act, before rushing through the third. Unfortunately there are plot holes big enough for a caveman with under 7 days of training to fly a Harrier Jet through. It feels like the filmmakers were so concerned that the 'gold mining scheme' storyline was not epic enough that with 40 minutes to go they shift it to a haphazardly assembled BIG scale theme which seems rushed. There's enough plot elements for two movies crammed into one - so neither it or the characters are fully explained or explored.
Nevertheless this is a Summer movie, one made for audiences who are just after light-hearted entertainment. The FX, sound andaction are B:E's stronger ponts and may be sufficient for those who don't want to think too deeply about such things as story and characters. - Garth Franklin
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Originally posted by Chaplin But I have to say, kudos to you Stronso for being really the only one who has done movie-a-days for movies you don't really like!
As opposed to the rest of us who for the most part have done movies which Chap doesn't like.
Funny thing about BE is that Travolta wants to do a BE2, now that's what I call commitment to L. Ron Hubbard!
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Originally posted by Stout The sad thing is, BE is one of the great sci fi novels out there. For this piece of crap to represent this classic is a shame, a shame!
I shudder to think what would have happened to Peter Jackson if LOTR had the same treatment as BE. He would have been lynched by the Tolkeinites.
Originally posted by Stronso I shudder to think what would have happened to Peter Jackson if LOTR had the same treatment as BE. He would have been lynched by the Tolkeinites.
Can you even begin to imagine LOTR as one single movie?
New Line has got to look like the smartest bunch of people in the history of the entertainment industry. They greenlit the project even though they KNEW that they would literally be ruined if the movies didn't make as much money as they did.
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---------------------------------------------------- "I don't flop. I don't complain. I beat you." - Shaquille O'Neal
I didn't hate this movie as much as everyone else, I guess. I went in with zero expectation and was entertained for a couple of hours. Nothing special, but I didn't want to puke or anything (how's that for a ringing endorsement?).
Discaliamer: I also didn't hate Waterworld and never saw Ishtar.
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Originally posted by Pariah I didn't hate this movie as much as everyone else, I guess. I went in with zero expectation and was entertained for a couple of hours. Nothing special, but I didn't want to puke or anything (how's that for a ringing endorsement?).
Discaliamer: I also didn't hate Waterworld and never saw Ishtar.
I still love Waterworld!
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Waterworld definitely is better than its repuation suggests. It's still not a great movie, but it's not bad. And in fact it actually made money back--the whole thing about being a colossal flop is an urban legend.
PS The main problem I had with Battlefield Earth is kinda stupid--it was the gloves and protethic hands that the aliens had.
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---------------------------------------------------- "I don't flop. I don't complain. I beat you." - Shaquille O'Neal
Originally posted by SirChaz Well I saw the previews and figured this movie looked pretty stupid. Then it got bad reviews so I figured I would not watch it.
A friend of mine bought the DVD And convinced me to watch it.
It was not as bad as I thought it would be. I was mildly entertained by it. Of course I have no desire to watch it again.
I guess the key to movies like this is low expectations.
Well, considering you can get the DVD for 6 bucks, it's not that huge of an investment. (No, Battlefield Earth is NOT one of my DVDs)
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---------------------------------------------------- "I don't flop. I don't complain. I beat you." - Shaquille O'Neal
I chose to read the book before I saw the movie. I am so glad I did. I can't remember being more disappointed after watching a movie. Man, I could have done a better job putting together that movie.
I hope someday someone takes this story and writes a good screenplay. It is one of my favorite SciFi novels of all time.
If I were to do it over again I would break the book up into a trilogy of movies. Do it like the LOTR movies where you release one a year.
Man I'm still pissed at how crappy that movie was. If you haven't read the book I highly recommend it.
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I can't believe it's taken me so long to respond to a bad movie!
I found this to be a fairly standard bad movie experience. Plot holes you could drive a truck through, more logic errors than you could shake a stick at, laugh out loud acting, etc. I didn't think it was an utterly horrible or memorably bad movie on the level of House of the Dead. I honestly think that if John Travolta wasn't such an outspoken Scientologist this movie would have been forgotten about by now. Kind of like the hype for Gigli, which wasn't nearly as bad (but by no means any good) as everyone would have you believe.
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And convinced me to watch it.
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