Battlefield Earth (2000)

Directed by Roger Christian. Starring Barry Pepper, John Travolta, Forest Whitaker, Kim Coates, Sabine Karsenti, Richard Tyson, Michael MacRae, Kelly Preston. [PG-13]

Bottom-of-the-barrel science fiction adventure catastrophe, based on the first half of L. Ron Hubbard’s massive novel, is one of the more infamous failures in film history. Even the least discerning genre fans in the world could smell the stink coming off this one (and not just because everything looks so grungy and foul). Story about mankind fighting back against their enslaving alien overlords isn’t an especially interesting one; required to sell it are well-utilized tropes, punchy dialogue and characterizations, visually exciting design and effects, and flashes of wit and excitement. Unfortunately, this film has none of those things (unless shooting about eighty-five percent of the movie at a Dutch angle is considered “visually exciting design”), with astounding lapses in logic and laughable performances to boot—either shapelessly generic (Pepper) or incalculably weird and over-the-top (Travolta). One of the worst-looking would-be blockbusters ever released, and not even that amusing to watch for purposes of ridicule because of how boring the whole thing is. Self-respecting man-animals should stay far, far away.

5/100