Considering that it is probably the most maligned film
of the year, Battlefield Earth is surprisingly good. Sure, the first half hour is a
total mess but it does develop into a half-way decent, us-against-the-aliens adventure.
Now it must be note that I have not read the book on
which this film is based, so I can't comment on how faithful to the book the film is;
maybe that lowers my expectations of what this film should be.
And what it is is an overblown, sci-fi adventure loaded
with over-the-top acting, mostly from John Travolta, bad dialogue and ludicrous scenes.
In fact, the first half hour of the film is so horrible that I'm sure that there
were plenty of people who gave up on this film before the story had even had time to
develop.
The first half hour is tediously slow, the pace of the
film does pick up marginally for the remainder of the film, and several times I found
myself having to try to stop myself from dozing off. Not a good sign.
However, things do pick up as the true intentions of
the Psyclos and the humans become apparent and they continue to undermine each other, both
believing that they have the upper hand in the battle.
Leading the way for the humans is Johnny
"goodboy" Tyler (Barry Pepper), a newly enslaved human who is determined to shed
his chains and destroy the evil Psyclos that now rule the earth.
Pepper is well cast as the leader of the human revolt
and his performance is definately the stand-out one of the film. He even delivers the
trademark "inspirational speeches" with enough gusto to make them
semi-believable.
It is Tyler's continued battle against the leader of
the Psyclo's, Terl (John Travolta), that is the core of the film and the two work off each
other well and, at times, the exchanges between the two are quite intriguing.
John Travolta is as over-the-top as ever but such a
performance is well suited to this role and, in the end, his performance does win you over
(although there are some times when you seriously question whether it will).
Where this film really falls off the rails in in the
editing. You sense that somewhere in this film there is a four-star movie trying to
get out but it looks like it has been edited together by a pack of untrained gorillas.
The continued use of "wipes", particularly early on, is quite tedious and
the result is quite a muddled film that does no justice to its interesting story.
Still, there is enough action in Battlefield Earth to
make it worth watching. It is certainly not as bad as it has been made out to be and if
you can make it through the first half hour, you may just find yourself actually enjoying
what many people rate as the worst film of the year.
I certainly did (enjoy it that is).
- Adam Matthews
