Review of Battlefield Earth (2000) by Ven-Wede — 30 Jan 2012

Battlefield Earth can be quite accurately summed up by just describing how John Travolta appears - bloated, clumsy, unintelligent, overbearing, uninteresting, ugly, ridiculous, pathetic... The list could go on, though there is a lot more to get to.

The plot is mostly cliched, contrived nonsense; the characters look stupid, do stupid things and say stupid things; but where Battlefield Earth fails on such an IMMENSE scale is the direction. Seriously, the direction is ABHORRENT - never has a big-budget Hollywood movie been directed so awfully.

The camera is almost permanently stuck on an absurd diagonal, making it very hard to concentrate, and also causing borderline motion sickness. On top of that, the colours and the lighting are so ugly that it almost defies you to continue watching.

Every scene is either in this dull and lifeless blue, or a bewildering menagerie of green, yellow and purple. It's just baffling how anyone could look at this steaming pile and find it anything but excruciating! In addition to this abomination of direction is a cast of grossly unappealing actors, including the emotional flatline, Barry Pepper; the half-asleep Forest Whitaker; and of course, the ham and cheese deluxe, John Travolta.

All the adjectives in the world fail to even touch on the complete depth of hopelessness that Battlefield Earth exudes in all facets of production. Let it be the saga of the year 2000, so that all will know of the first mistake humankind made in the new millennium.