Best Worst Movie: Battlefield Earth

It doesn't take much to make a movie bad. Sometimes it is a terrible plot, or perhaps the actors do no seem to be trying, however one movie does just about all of these tasks. It is no surprise that Battlefield: Earth is one of the worst movies recently--if not the best worst movie ever created.

Just warning you, there are several movie spoilers up ahead.

Directed by Roger Christian, Battlefield: Earth takes place on, you guessed it, Earth during the year 3000. According to the plot (or lack thereof) it is assumed that a group of aliens known as Psychlos took over the Earth in the year 2000. Even though the Psychlos took over the Earth one thousand years ago, there are still bands of primitive humans living in caves.

Enter the cast of roles. Barry Pepper has the lead as Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, an young man is ambitious to leave his surroundings in order to explore, however his society believes that there are "monsters" outside of their surroundings. Much to Johnny's luck, he is soon captured by a Psychlo alien named Terl who is played by John Travolta. It is here where Terl wants Jonnie to mine gold for him so that he can become immensely rich. It is here where Jonnie hatches a plan to reconquer Earth by enlisting help from other tribes

The whole movie is particularly humorous regarding its cinematography. It seems as if Roger Christian wanted to shoot each scene at an old angle. This wouldn't be any problem if you didn't have to crane your neck for every scene. Another method that fails is the constant use of slow motion. Slow motion is really interesting when used in the right moments, however when you use every single shot in slow motion (such as Jonnie running through a collapsing building) it gets old and stale. Slow motion is used best in small doses--not in every scene.

Even more ludicrous is the constant plot holes that threaten the film. For example, according to Terl, the Psychlos were able to conquer the Earth in nine minutes, yet you think to yourself that these primitive humans are able to fight the Psychlos in just amount the same time and do well. How is this possible? Another scene involves the humans fighting the Psychlos in jets that just happen to be located on a runway. Even more impossible is how each of these thousand-year-old jets are fully functional and each of the human pilots can pilot them. Impossible indeed.

Perhaps the funniest part of Battlefield:Earth is the terrible voice acting. John Travolta wins this award by portraying an "evil villain" who is not really that evil. Combined with a high pitched voice that does not produce any sort of "evil" at all, one can scoff at how "unevil" "evil" Terl really is. The only thing Terl can really portray his "evildoing" is by committing "evil" acts which are really portrayed as taunts or insults to others.

Overall, I found Battlefield:Earth to be the most humorous film of the decade. Clocked in at just two hours, I could not stop laughing at the bad angles, the bad plot holes, the bad voice acting, and even the bad script. A battlefield of movie mediocrity is portrayed excellently on Earth--only in the year 3000.

Sources:

"Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000." The Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185183/