Scientology is bullshit [movie review inside]
jojo_as...@kurilka.com
This movie is like watching the Pope accidentally catch on fire while
giving Easter Mass. If that's not a time to rethink your spiritual
choices, what is?
THE GREAT THING about "Battlefield Earth" is that you can leave at any
time.
Adapted from Mr. Hubbard's unreadable sludge pile of a novel...
It swigs the Ebola virus as mouthwash during its first turgid,
apocalyptic, Planet-of-the-Apes-pilfered minutes, then spends two
hours convulsing and frothing on screen until you want to stuff a
pillow in its mouth and say: Enough already.
If you like bad films, wait until it hits the second runs and remember
to take drugs beforehand.
This movie gives stupidity a bad name.
Battlefield Earth has the stench of death...
..Hubbard's Machiavellian nine-foot-tall Sasquatch-like alien
antagonist is somehow interpreted by the filmmakers as John Travolta
decked out like a gay Conehead with Rob Zombie hair, in KISS platform
boots ...
Warner Bros. is trying to lure audiences for "Battlefield Earth" with
a "Take Back the Planet" contest, offering a grand prize of $100,000.
It ain't enough.
Everybody in the film, in short, looks like they know where to find
truly excellent weed.
You could pick at this movie the way a hyena picks at a deer carcass,
but unlike the hyena, you wouldn't end up feeling fulfilled afterward.
..we had to wait 15 minutes before we were allowed to sit through the
exciting conclusion, the excitement being the mounting certainty that
it would end eventually.
Battlefield Earth" is like taking a bus trip with someone who has
needed a bath for a long time. It's not merely bad; it's unpleasant in
a hostile way...
I watched it in mounting gloom, realizing I was witnessing something
historic, a film that for decades to come will be the punch line of
jokes about bad movies.
..hard to settle into a really deep sleep when the people keep
tripping over you as they head for the exits.
..so breathtakingly awful in concept and execution, it wouldn't tax
the smarts of a troglodyte.
But hey, let's cut to the chase: We're talking "Ishtar of the Apes."
Battlefield Earth resembles nothing so much as what a bunch of
ten-year-olds would create if given some Star Wars knock-off action
figures, a videocamera, and heavy pharmaceuticals.
AAAAAAAAGHHHH! MY EYES! IT BURNS! IT BURNS!
Sincere warning: they have only filmed the first half of the book.
Don't go to this movie, or they'll make the second half too. Don't go!
I can find where you live, I will hunt you down. You will be sorry, we
all will be sorry. Save the planet.
It's bad. Real bad. Most of the critics walked out at the screening.
My brother walked out of it three times (he kept coming back in to ask
if I'd take him home; I drove.)
..now that we've talked about Battlefield Earth, let's never speak of
it again.
..headache inducing effects blitz
..overproduced cosmic clunker that gives science fiction in general a
bad name.
It's been his (Travolta's) baby from start to finish. It's not a
pretty baby.
It's a battle to not walk out.
If those Scientologists are fans of film, they may consider
"Battlefield Earth" a call to mass suicide.
A young child saying, "Look mommy, I made a poopie!" is to John
travolta saying, "I'm very proud of 'Battlefield Earth'"
The movie "Gone in 60 Seconds" premiered today. It is the story of
the audiences for "Battlefield Earth."
It didn't need bad publicity to tank; bad filmmaking should take care
of that.
The warning, "Don't see this movie." is actually among the nicer
comments......
..the next time a Scientologist offers to help sort out your life,
feel free to laugh in their face and ask why they can't help John
Travolta make better movies.
..an abomination from start to finish.
What a thrill it is for those of us who care about movies to realize
that after its awful opening, even a lousy $35 million may be beyond
the reach of this dim-witted slag heap of cinematic detritus.
May the faith be with him: the US box office certainly wasn't.
That the guy who wrote "Battlefield Earth" even knew how to tie his
own shoe laces is hard to believe.
...hard to understand how this story could find its way from the
sales bins of second-hand book shop to a movie theater near you.
..punishing the audience with an unbearable hour and a half of
incomprehensible battle sequences and turgid dialogue.
With the film opening outside the US this weekend, a whole new wave of
critics are getting to bash the only film I've ever seen that makes
Batman & Robin look watchable.
..after a moment of siclence for Travolta's career, the critic ran
clips from the film while reading all of the sysnonyms for "rubbish"
from a thesaurus.
..hefty enough to batter a mule into unconsciousness - which was
about the only fit use for it.
Avoid it like the ghastly, shambling horror it is.
(Regarding Travolta's performance)...hammy William Shatner's haripiece
is more convincing.
I felt my brain cells dying at a worryingly rapid rate.....
Indeed, the only subliminal voice I could detect came about 10 minutes
into this 121-minute film and it seemed to be saying, "Leeeaaave
thissss cinemmmaaa noooow."
...complete wreck of a film that makes you wonder what the hell
anyone was thinking of when they decided to make it and how the hell
anyone had the guts to release it.
To call "Battlefield Earth" a bad movie would do no justice to the
immeasurable depths Travolta explores with director Roger Christian.
..that this rubbish can occupy Dutch threatres after a debacle in the
USA is utterly disgraceful.
...my head was filled with, "Do you realize the Lakers and the
Phoenix Suns are on TV now?", or even "What a woeful life it is to be
a film critic."
If you think my rating is harsh, the New York Times gave the movie a
zero rating.
A turkey of genetically modified proportions.
In the spirit of contrarines, it would be nice to find something good
to say about the version of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's 1983
nove. No such luck - "Battlefield Earth" is truly, truly awful.
...too silly and inept to be involving....
Legions of science fiction fans will feel compelled to approach the
ticket boot and scream for a refund.
..don't think too hard about where your money may be headed.
...does not shine particularly for its subtlety.
..cinematic aberration that is "Battlefield Earth"
In other words, people were calling their friends and strongly
advising them not to see this film.
..the critics gleefully boot it around like a soccer ball.
The only thing is lacked was a story you could swallow without getting
a brain clot in the process.
Not may want to watch John Travolta movies after the critical and
public failure of "Battlefield Earth." Not even his own movie
company.
Contrary to our report, John Travolta did not say of "Battlefield
Earth, "Man, I need an alcoholic beverage. This movie blows." What he
said was, "Man-animal will never get leverage on a Psychlo." We will
have an update when we figure out what this means.
..bad enough to make you wish you were some place else.
..so bad it doesn't even qualify as a turkey movie.
..more interesting picking your navel grain than watching this movie.
Sometimes it is a good thing that you can't remeber a movie exactly,
like you fortunately can't fully recall how it feels to vomit.
Horribly, terribly, screamingly, painfully bad. And not in a goodway.
Christian has chosen ... the sneaky trick ... of making ... the film
.. so ... plodding ... that you’ll leave ... the theater ...
wondering ... whether ... 1,000 years ... have ... passed... since ...
you ... went ... in. "
..I'd rather be hit in the face with a copy of Dianetics.
Vinnie Barbarino bought the rights himself to single-handedly bring
this lumbering pile of shit to the silver screen.....
..makes Ishtar and Waterworld look like Citizen Kane.
..John Travolta and Kelly Preston, his wife, have more money than
God, and they’re willing to spend it on a cockroach spittle like
"Battlefield Earth."
The film can always be used as an instrument of torture.
It has so appalled critics and audiences in America that
thedistributors have resorted to giving away tickets.
The problem is that its dreadfulness doesn’t take an entertaining
form.
Everything about Battlefield Earth sucks. Everything. The over-the-top
music, the unbelievable sets, the terrible dialogue, the hammy acting,
the lousy special effects, the beginning, the middle and especially
the end. God above, it's bad. Sweet baby Jesus, it's bad. By all that
is holy and sacred on the Earth, this is a bad, bad, bad film.
..its awfulness truly is by an order of magnitude beyond that of "the
same old crap."
Fans of L. Ron Hubbard, and Travolta's fellow Scientologists might
like it out of loyalty; other, saner people should really avoid the
whole sorry mess.
The movie's mode is brutal and excremental.
So silly, at first I thought maybe it was intentional self-parody.
But perhaps the most unfortunate thing about it is that it can't be
ridiculed on the now-canceled "Mystery Science Theater 3000.
`Battlefield Earth` is a deadly pile of space junk that threatens
humanity the minute it enters our atmosphere -- and our theaters. Run!
L. Ron Hubbard must have put an awful lot of thought into
Scientology.Because judging by "Battlefield Earth," he didn't leave
anything forhis novels.
''Battlefield Earth'' begins as retro pulp and ends up, figuratively
speaking, as tons of wet cardboard.
I didn't detect any hidden messages in the film, only the pungent
aroma of a stink bomb of colossal proportions.
..the fruit of an overrated star’s overblown ego, recklessly indulged
by studio excess.
You have to be Psychlo to spend any money to see Battlefield Earth.
dumb and obvious may be an effective way to start your own religion,
it's no way to make a movie.
You don't watch it - you survive it.
..stinks of moldy cheese, yet the movie has not a whiff of irony.