Battlefield Earth

Rating:
Summary: It's beyond Bad
Review: Sometimes a bad movie can be redeemed to be somewhat entertaining because how bad it is (for instance: "Cool as Ice" with Vanilla Ice). Yet, Battlefield Earth is so bad that it is unredeemable, even if you're looking for a "it's so stupid it's funny" flick. Faulty logic abounds and I fear that those few souls that would find this movie entertaining are the result of the decline in educational standards in the United States. Most movies that are good require some form of intellectual involvement on your part in order to follow the plot or understand the ending. Battlefield Earth uses this against you as you try to make sense of the entire movie, thus making it (possibly) one of the WORST MOVIES of ALL TIME.

In my opinion, watching this decreases your IQ by a point each time you watch it, so each viewing seems to get better and better as you get stupider and stupider. Be wary: if you found this movie even remotely entertaining, you've been sucked into its blackhole of stupidity. Most will turn and run before it's too late, but inevitably there are some that will be sucked in with no hope to escape.

Rating:
Summary: Clam-flavored pulp!
Review: More than a year now I have been coming across many similarly written and surprisingly positive reviews of Battlefield Earth. This has left a strange taste in my mouth... the taste of Xemu-worshipping clams!

Make no mistake: No amount of schilling by those that might benefit from the success of this piece of gutter-junk will change just how bad it is.

Yes, I've seen it, and Battlefield Earth is awful. But unlike many awful flicks that somehow provide some camp entertainment, this one just plain sucks. It isn't fun. The acting is terrible. The plot makes almost no sense. The action is poor, and the special effects not that great.

But why stop there?

Another reason to avoid this DVD release: a brand new "feature" called Regional Coding Enhancement, or RCE. Having the word "enhancement" in the title might make us think that we, the consumer, might actually benefit for this technology, but that isn't the case, of course. The only people to benefit are the movie studios who, not content to gouge us on DVD prices (DVD's are cheaper to press than video tapes) have made it impossible to backup a DVD, or play a foreign DVD on a North American DVD player. Now, thanks to RCE, if you own a region-free DVD player, guess what? You can't play Battlefield Earth on it!

Which is, actually, just as well...

Rating:
Summary: Exactly Why Movies Are Made
Review: Without a doubt, Battlefield Earth will one day be regarded as the best science fiction film of all time, if not among the greatest cinematic achievements, period. This epic is truly in a class by itself. The struggle between good and evil, humanity and well-endowed aliens, greed for wealth and power and the knowledge enough to attain it, has not yet seen better committment to celluloid than it has here in what is surely John Travolta's career highlight. Travolta effectively captures the essence of alien leader, Terl with a dead-on accent, and the mannerisms befitting anyone bent on conquering Earth. Surely, George Lucas is sweating buckets wondering how he will top this marvelous adventure with the two remaining Star Wars films. In fact, the screen version of Hubbard's classic novel makes Lucas' original trilogy look only mildly entertaining in comparison. Winning performances all around propel this gem forward as a full speed wonder. First rate sci-fi fun for the whole family! Bravo! Can't wait for the sequel....

Rating:
Summary: Not just awful...
Review: More than a year now I have been coming across many similarly written and surprisingly positive reviews of Scientology's Battlefield Earth. This has left a strange taste in my mouth... the taste of Xemu-worshipping clams!

Make no mistake: No amount of schilling by those that might benefit from the success of this... will change just how bad it is.

Yes, I've seen it, and Battlefield Earth is awful. But unlike many awful flicks that somehow provide some camp entertainmen.... It isn't fun. The acting is terrible. The plot is makes almost no sense. The action is poor, and the special effects not that great.

But why stop there?

Another reason to avoid this DVD release: a brand new "feature" called Regional Coding Enhancement, or RCE. Having the word "enhancement" in the title might make us think that we, the consumer, might actually benefit for this technology, but that isn't the case, of course. The only people to benefit are the movie studios who, not content to gouge us on DVD prices (DVD's are cheaper to press than video tapes) have made it impossible to backup a DVD, or play a foreign DVD on a North American DVD player. Now, if you do own a region-free DVD player, guess what? You can't play Battlefield Earth on it!

Which is, actually, just as well. But avoid this DVD anyway.

Rating:
Summary: Good, if you take the time to watch it.
Review: When I put Battlefield earth in my VCR I thought I was going into a horrifically bad movie, instead I was pleasently suprised. This is actually a very entertaining movie, but it does have some bad factors. The film starts out when a boy heads out into the wilderness to find his dad, he meets 2 others and they grunt at each other for a few minutes then head out to a ruined city, at the city they are attacked by something big, menacing and creepy, in a long slow motion sequence all of them run, 2 bite the dust and the hero calls in his horse, (How did he get there?) but he is captured and the horse is killed. After that everything gets confusing. The aliens are not threatinging at all. In fact they seem to be bored out of theier minds. They make no attempts to capture the humans when they escape and even when they are attaked they still seem bored. In fact you have to laugh when you see them because they are so pathetic. John Travolta is quite goofy and strange (He keeps !saying "Ratbrain" in the entire film). It is true that cavemen manage to fly super advanced jets that have not been serviced in over 1,000 years. But something that all the reviews forget to mention is that they have something called Simulators that they find. The rest of the film is pretty entertaining, with some good special effects and explosions. Its too bad this has gotten a bad rap because those who are brave enough to watch this might be entertained.

The Good: Good special effects, nice action sequences, unintentionally amusing

the Bad: Horrific acting, religious sidestory is worthless

And the ugly: lots of dull moments

The bad:

Rating:
Summary: Avoid unless you are feeling intellectually masochistic
Review: I could go into the acting or the special effects. I could go into the too numerous to count plot holes (for example, the Harriers, yeah...if you've seen it you know what I'm talking about). If I was so inclined I could probably write a twenty-page paper on what is wrong with this movie, but I'm not. And I am not going to further elaborate on specifics in this review, for others have already pointed out many of the films flaws. What I do want to say is that I rented this movie knowing full well that it was supposed to be a bad movie. What I was hoping is that it would be bad in a funny, entertaining way. It was a gamble, and I lost. I'm not complaining, for I knew that I might lose. I simply want to warn those out there who may try the same thing I did. The movie does provide some laughs, but generally in a "I'm dying of cancer and if I laugh maybe I can briefly forget how bad things are" kind of way.

Rating:
Summary: Golden Sci Fi
Review: Golden Sci Fi invokes the images of Flash Gordon & the type of Saturday matinee movies that I first saw when I was 8 or 9. It opened up a world of possibility for me & got me thinking about all sorts of stuff.

I loved those movies. BE is in the same genre.

This movie tries to tell the story of a great book. That is an impossible task. Like many movies that tried this in the past, it falls somewhat short of the mark.

But as exciting Sci Fi - pulp if you will, it succeeds admirably.

I almost didn't get the tape because when I saw the movie as it premiered, the movie house sound system & optics made me think it was not as good as it, in fact, is. The tape resolves this - it is bright colorful & the sound is amazing. Sometime I'd like to find out why that is. But BE is much better in my home than I ever thought it would be.

My sons like it. My grandsons love it.

It is one of those stories that seems to appeal to all age groups.

You'll be glad you watched it!

Rating:
Summary: Definitely buy and see this one!
Review: My personal opinion is quite different than the critics. The critics went way overboard-as usual. Does anybody really listen to the critics-I hope not. This DVD really has some good stuff on it. The commentary is special because you are getting inside data on how the movie was made and various details from the director and art director. It wsa very cool to see behind the secenes shotsand interviews from the people involved with the movie. I also liked the movie itself--it is true Sci-Fi. The special effects were well done and amazing when you consider the budget of $20 million to make the movie itself-including the special effects shots. The DVD was number 2 on the charts-so obviously others agree. Check it out.

Rating:
Summary: horrors!
Review: "Battlefield Earth" garnered an unprecedented eight nominations for the Golden Raspberry Awards (the "razzies"). Having sat through it myself, I can tell you, it is not hard to see why. It's really hard to describe how incredibly abyssmal "Battlefield Earth" is. It's a derivative, sloppy, shoddy, implausible nightmare of a film, a train wreck, a riot of bad acting from people who know better. It's the kind of film Edward D. Wood Jr. would have made if he'd had a big budget. Worst of all, it wastes Forrest Whittaker, who was so excellent in "Ghost Dog: the Way of the Samurai."

Occasionally, I am in the mood for a laugh at a really bad film. At those times I watch something by Ed Wood or Phil Tucker's "Robot Monster." Now, "Battlefield Earth" will join them on my list for years to come.

Rating:
Summary: Battlefield Earth
Review: Battlefield Earth Is a masterpiece...What I want to know is why are the critics trashing it !?!?! It's a wounderful Science Fiction movie that will keep you wanting more !!!! I know that it did not do well in the theater (and I still don't understand why) But that doesn't mean trash it...I swear here is my Email address and I want each person that disagree's with me to tell me why they didn't like it...The [e-mail].....