Entry #8: Battlefield Earth

Release Date: May 12, 2000
Budget: $58,000,000 (inflation adjusted)

Battlefield Earth had a lot of things going against right off the bat: 1) I can't stand John Travolta; 2) I can't stand organized religion (so you can guess how I feel about Scientology); and 3) My keg of Haydenfest had just blown.  'Not fair' you say; 'Battlefield Earth never had a chance'.  Tough shit, John Travolta.

Let me try to summarize this steaming pile of flaming earth poo:

In the year 3000 man is an endangered species and consequently, we go back to loin cloths.  Gods have left the earth and demons have descended (I would argue this has already happened).  The demons take the form of Psychlos who have come to earth to rape the earth of its natural resources and its cinematic dignity.

Our protagonist, Johnny "Goodboy" Taylor is one of a handful still living in human cells trying to organize the remaining members of the race for a final stand against the Psychlos, which sounds vaguely like the Occupy movement. Unlike the Occupy movement, it eventually accomplishes something.

In the opening moments, Goodboy leaves camp to go fight the good fight leaving his woman behind, so now he really has something to fight for... so contrived.  Also, in the opening moments, Johnny gets attacked by a Psychlo with a laser..  which is exactly what will happen to the human race if we don't keep up the public school system.. aliens are already outpacing us in science!

Johnny T and his little girl voice show up at 15 minutes as part of the alien race and his acting performance takes an already crappy level to a new level.  Seriously.. terrible.  Travolta's character is in charge of the Psychlos on earth and not so eloquently lays out his plan to mine the Earth of all its natural resources using slave human labor.

Have I mentioned that John Travolta is awful?

To make a long and terrible story short, Johnny Goodboy gets mind raped by some sort of mind machine.. and then stays to get further mind-raped.... apparently a masochist.  During his mind fuck, he learns a lot about math and science.. enough to let man-animals escape.  With his new found intelligence Johnny breaks them out.. take control of the Earth once again and save the humans and us from this moving going on any longer.

Here are some of my favorite parts from watch thing movie:
-  Quote  "Is this supposed to be funny?" - my wife
-  I'm sure there's a deep meaning here, I just don't care enough to think about it.
-  There is a super cheeky scene in a library, where the escaped humans rediscover the Declaration of Independence and it gives them the courage to continue the good fight.  No, seriously. .
- There are more wipes in this movie to transition from scene to scene than I used on Hayden's bottom in the first 2.5 years of his existence.
- There is a really awful plot twist where instead of mining for the gold that the aliens want the humans to get, they just go to Fort Knox to get the gold.  I'm serious; I couldn't make that shit up. This is possible because the psychos give the man-animals a fucking plane to fly wherever they want... no seriously.
-  The final battle scene sets a new standard for final scene retardedness....

In conclusion, I give Battlefield Earth a -10.  It actually made me give up on watching bad movies for like 7 months.  It is the worst thing I have ever seen and I've seen Jim Edwards drink protein shakes.  Posting this is a bit like telling a therapist about what your dad to you when you were a little boy: it's tough but it feels good to get this off my chest.  I hope the rest of the movies on the list won't be this terrible.