Battlefield Earth

"Better than Star Wars" - an actual John Travolta quote about this film

Did you know that the full title of this film is actually Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000?  The shortened title sounds like it might be halfway decent (if you didn't know any better), but that subtitle...yeesh.  Let me take the understated route and say that any movie set 1000 years in the future has a decent chance of looking silly unless they spent years speculating about the future of technology.  Is that a fair statement?  I think I'm being damn generous.  This isn't my first bought with BE.  When it first hit the video shelves after its disastrous theatrical run, I tried to watch this with my friends at No Bulljive; excessive drinking and a break to play Frisbee in the rain didn't come close to making this watchable.  What made me think that watching it on my own, years later, would improve the experience?  I had a theory.  This time, I decided to watch the Saga of the Year 3000 in 15-20 minute chunks.  That way, the pain gets spread out over a period of weeks and I don't spend the night with self-loathing.  What made me decide to endure this pain again at all?  I caught a few minutes on TV and laughed out loud.  What can I say?  I like to mock.

Entertainment Weekly published this.  Who knew they could be kind of funny?

Let's run through the plot as quickly as possible, because that's where a lot of the hurty brain feelings come from.  In the year 3000 (A.D., I guess...which calendar do the aliens follow?), humans are an endangered species.  An alien race called the Psychlos has conquered the Earth, using it as...um...well...maybe they're draining our resources?  I'm not sure.  They like gold, though.  Anyway, the Psychlos live in dome-covered cities, spread across the globe, with their largest settlement being in New York Chicago Los Angeles Denver (?!?).  Humans are either used as slave labor or they eke out an existence in small bands, hidden from the Psychlos.  Jonnie Goodboy (Barry Pepper) lives with his tribe deep in the Rocky Mountains.  Basically, he's a caveman, just without a decent cave.  Fed up with eating dirt for dinner, Jonnie goes exploring to see just how much of his tribe's legends are true.  Along the way, he teams up with a hunter, Carlo (Kim Coates).  While they're busy making friends, the two are captured by some Psychlos.

So far, it's not good, but it could be worse.  There's a Star Wars: Episode III-worthy shout of "Noooo!" in the beginning, and it's stupid to think that human speech devolved into animal grunting without any noticeable physical changes.  Oh, and the fact that a miniature golf course withstood 1000 years of weather and is still recognizable is pretty ridiculous, but that's as bad as the introduction gets.  It never gets this good again.

Enter the Psychlos.  Terl (John Travolta), the security chief on Earth, is eager for the end of his time on Earth; he has paid his dues by living on our stupid planet, and now he wants to leave.  That's too bad.  Terl's boss shows up and tells him that his stay has been extended indefinitely, thanks to something he did with "the Senator's daughter."  Wait...that sounds familiar...is that the movie where Travolta asks someone what is worse than rape, and it turns out to be...wait for it...rape?  Never mind, that's The General's Daughter.  I never thought I would be comparing that movie favorably.

Anyway, Terl comes up with a plan.  When he sees that Jonnie, a common "man-animal," is smart enough to wield some Psychlo technology, he decides to educate Jonnie.  Why?  Um.  The end game has Jonnie and some other man-animals working mining machines to dig up gold in a radioactive area (where Psychlos can't go), so he can buy his way off the planet with (radioactive, and therefore useless to the radiation-shy Psychlos) gold, as well as with some blackmail videos he has stored up and creatively edited.  How does Terl teach Jonnie to mine?  He has Jonnie sit in front of a learning machine (we call that a television in America) that shoots education right into his face.

"Get ready for the money shot, er, an unnecessarily complete education, Jonnie"

Wait...the Psychlos have monitoring drones, but not mining drones?  That makes no se --- AAAUGH!  BRAIN HEMORRHAGE! 

Jonnie learns the Psychlo language, their history, his own history, mathematics, and all sorts of other things that have absolutely nothing to do with gold mining.  With his new-found education, Jonnie sees the weaknesses of his enemies, and teaches his fellow man-animals that now is the time to fight like an animal because four legs good, two legs bad! be inspired by the United States Constitution (really) and fight for their right to completely exterminate the Psychlo race.  The movie ends with cavemen destroying spaceships with 1000+ year-old fighter jets (let that sink in...it's okay to scream...) and teleporting (They can teleport?  Why do they have space ships, then?) a nuke to the Psychlo home planet, which destroys it like a friggin' Death Star.  That's right, humanity is saved by nuclear weapons.  Whoops, I'm sorry, nuclear weapon, singular.

Here's a fun quote from the movie: "I'm going to make you as happy as a baby Psychlo on a diet of kerbango."  Whaaat?!?  Waaas?!?  Thaaat?!?  First of all, I love that Psychlo children are called "baby Psychlos."  That would be like telling someone that I slept like a human baby last night.  Basically, this begs the question, "as opposed to what...?"  Also, on a more personal note, that line almost made scotch come out of my nose, which only upset me more.  Just terrible dialogue.

Why is Battlefield Earth one of the most notorious movies of the the modern film era?  Sure, my description of it might sound kind of dumb, but is it really that much dumber than the bulk of what Hollywood churns out every year?  I don't think so.  No, BE plumbs the depths of awfulness by doing everything you can do in a movie poorly.

Let's start with the acting.  It's horrible.  End of story.  Honestly, John Travolta is as horrible of an overactor has ever, and his worst tendencies come out in force whenever he plays a villain.  Forest Whitaker was surprisingly bad as Travolta's lackey.  Barry Pepper was the worst, though.  The combination of his awful acting and his character's ridiculous dialogue puts him forever on my shit list. 

"The Academy saw this movie and wants my award back?  Aww, man...!"

The direction by Roger Christian is even worse.  It's not bad enough that the special effects look cheap, which is about all I expected this movie to do right, but everything in this movie is cheap.  The opening credits look like they were done with Power Point.  The Psychlos all have different accents, which is such an unnatural choice for actors to make that it had to have been made by the director ("John, you can be from Victorian England, and Forrest, you can be from Gruntsville, Oklahoma").  The camera work is wretched.  Every chase scene, which is normally something I would assume you would want to imply speed in, is filmed in slow-motion.  The camera tilts at random times, for no effect at all.  Even the transition wipes between scenes looked amateurish.  No wonder this director never helmed another major motion picture after this (or before, either, to be honest).

But maybe it all looks cool, right?  'Fraid not.  The costume design is laughably bad.

Barry Pepper, or the worst X-Men character from the 90s?  You decide.

I'm always impressed when primitive characters have long, flowing hair that is both tangle-free and not dread-locked.  It tells us so much about the culture of these man-animals, that they have lost all educated knowledge, but have still found a way to produce and use Suave shampoo.  The man-animal design is kind of stupid, but the Psychlos are where the real stupidity comes in.

Psychlos are 8-foot tall humanoids with very large skulls, bad teeth, and a lot of hair.  I don't know exactly why they wear riding pants and cod pieces, but it's certainly not for the cool factor.  What bothers me most are the mittens they call hands.  Look at the size of those things!  They are bigger than their faces and, when you watch the actors try to use them, are clearly awkward and nearly useless.  Well, at least they all attain their 8-foot tall stature by wearing Kiss-style platform boots.

The primary reason Battlefield Earth is one of the worst movies in modern cinema is not because the acting/directing/special effects and costuming were bad.  Sure, with all of that going against it, BE was going to go down as a wretched film, but it could have built a cult following if it wasn't so inept.  You see, the man-apes are acting like they're in a B-movie update of Planet of the Apes, but the Psychlos are acting like they are in a wry, British comedy about ne'er do wells who keep stabbing each other in the back (only, you know, ridiculously unfunny).  Travolta's accent doesn't help.  There are two completely incompatible tones at work in this movie, and neither one is good; the man-animals are never inspiring or clever, and the Psychlos are never evil or funny enough to make their backstabbing interesting.  Funny-bad movies typically get that way because they are played straight, but are absolutely ridiculous.  This movie tries to poke fun at the villains by making them petty and stupid, but their efforts to ridicule anything pale in comparison to the pure hate that your creative mind will come up with.

But is this the worst movie ever made?  I doubt it, but it certainly deserves to be in the competition.  If you are too stupid to take my advice and leave this one alone, do yourself a favor and put it on when you plan on falling asleep or passing out.

Still not convinced?  Well, let me tell you how awful this movie is.  When Terl drops off Jonnie to mine gold, he leaves a monitoring drone to make sure they are working.  Jonnie's plan is to travel to another location and teach all his caveman friends how to fly fighter jets because, obviously, they haven't rusted and turned to dust over the past 1000 years.  And they certainly weren't used to fight the Psychlos 1000 years ago, and are technology that they are not prepared to battle.  But what about the gold, Jonnie?  Don't worry about it.  He's just going to fly to Fort Knox and pick up the amount that Terl demanded from the mine.  You might be asking yourself how stupid these man-animals are to hand over bricks of solid gold and expect someone to believe that they were mined that way.  Apparently, not as stupid as Terl, who accepts the gold without question and apparently never checks his monitor drone to see if some man-animals took a flying vehicle for a joyride of a few thousand miles.  What does it use for fuel?  Stupidity?  Thank goodness that these gold-hungry aliens haven't found one of the largest (and most famous) stashes of gold in the world in their 1000 year reign!  Uh-oh...I think I taste bile.  Time to forget about this movie again.

True Grit (2010)

When I heard that some of my favorite filmmakers, the Coen Brothers, were remaking the John Wayne classic True Grit, I was conflicted.  The Coens usually don't disappoint, but a remake just seemed like it would paint them into a corner; I usually like the Coens best when they are free to be weird or dark or whatever they happen to feel like at the time.  The first previews I saw didn't encourage me much, either; while I don't know exactly how Jeff Bridges managed to speak that incoherently, my first guess is that he had somebody else's tongue in his mouth whenever he needed to deliver dialogue.  Nevertheless, I really liked the original film, I love the Coen Brothers, and I'm a fan of Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon, so I ignored my reservations and visited my local cinema house.

For those that are unfamiliar with the plot, young Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), aged fourteen, goes to the town where her recently deceased father's corpse waits for her.  Quite the little businesswoman, she sends the body back to her hometown, buys and sells some horses, and goes to the sheriff, expecting to hear news about the search for her father's killer.  The news is that the cowardly killer, Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), has left the state and entered Indian Territory, where the law is unlikely to pursue him.  Mattie wants to see Chaney die for his crimes, and she learns that she can hire a US Marshall to act as a bounty hunter for her.  There are competent trackers, and all-around good men that are well-suited for the job, but Mattie opts for the meanest Marshall around: the surly, one-eyed drunk, Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges).

It takes quite a bit of convincing, but Mattie manages to hire Cogburn for the job.  However, no amount of convincing talk will make him follow her wishes to the letter, which include taking her with him on the manhunt and making sure that Chaney dies for killing her father and not any other crime.  After all, a Texas Ranger named La Boef (Matt Damon) wants to bring Chaney to justice in Texas, where a sizable reward would be split between him and Cogburn.  And, as for the idea of Mattie joining the manhunt in person, that's just ridiculous.  But, as many older men find out as this film progresses, Mattie Ross is not a ridiculous young woman, but someone with the will to get exactly what she wants.

This film is certainly centered around the story of Mattie Ross, but the star of the film is definitely Rooster Cogburn. Jeff Bridges does not disappoint in his role, and he manages to not echo John Wayne's Oscar-winning performance.  Bridges' take on the character can be summed up as simply "dirty."  He looks fat and greasy, he fights dirty, and he is generally a rough, unlovable person.  And that all works out great; he's believably tough, socially awkward, and genuinely funny, depending on the situation.  And Bridges' physical acting was superb; he walked the walk of an aged roughneck very well and this might be the most believable "guy with an eyepatch" role I have ever seen.  The only thing I didn't like was his bizarre mumbling, but more on that later.  Hailee Steinfeld does a great job as the calm, collected, and damn stubborn Mattie.  She manages to be stubborn, persistent, and pushy, but still likable.  This is a great role with depth for a young actress, and Steinfeld (in her feature film debut) does a fantastic job.  Matt Damon made his character less charming than Glen Campbell did in the original, and I liked his character far better because of it.  I like Damon best when he is not trying to be funny, and he comes across as earnest and occasionally exasperated here, which I thought fit this film well.  The rest of the supporting actors have limited screen time, but benefit from the Coen's tendency to make their bit role colorful.  Barry Pepper looked every part the Wild West nomad as the villainous (Ned) Pepper.  Josh Brolin played his character as fairly dim-witted and brutish, which I thought was a good choice.  Domhall Gleeson (Brendan's son and Bill Weasley in the latest Harry Potter) is stuck with a fairly whiny role as the doomed Moon, but I thought he handled the part well and didn't overact, which is high praise, considering what they do to his character.

Joel and Ethan Coen did a great job writing and directing the film.  Every single character in the film is memorable, many are funny, but the viewer is never distracted from the main story.  Why does Rooster Cogburn go out of his way to kick those Indian children?  It doesn't matter, it's just something he does; on with the plot!  They got a very good performance from a very inexperienced actress, and they let Bridges have fun as a crotchety old man.  More importantly, though, is the overall tone of the film.  The word "quirky" is often (justly) applied to Coen Brothers projects because they enjoy going off on tangents and having a cast of extremely colorful characters.  Here, they are able to keep their cast of goofy characters, but they all serve the plot, so they don't feel like diversions.  The cinematography, done by frequent Coen collaborator Roger Deakins, is noticeably impressive; this movie looks and feels as filthy and smelly as the Old West must have truly been, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't full of harsh, broad, and beautiful landscapes.  This might be the best looking Coen film since O Brother, Where Art Thou? (also shot by Deakins), and it is perhaps their best balance of gritty stories and funny characters to date.

Now, let's discuss the mumbling.  When I saw the trailer for this movie, I assumed that Bridges just had his cheeks full of chewing tobacco, because the Old West was a disgusting place and chaw is nauseatingly fitting for that time and place.  Sadly, it was simply a choice by the actor and the directors.  I guess it could be the side effect of being a rough-and-tumble character in an age where medical attention was both lacking and deficient; theoretically, they could have invented a back story for Rooster than involved a few broken jaws that healed crooked.  Whatever the reason, it was kind of obnoxious, especially when it obscured a witty quip from Bridges.  Later in the film, Damon also joins the mushmouth parade, but at least his character is given an excuse.  These atypical verbal deliveries may have been realistic for the times, but I found them generally irritating and actually kept me from understanding some key moments of dialogue.

How does this stand up to the original?  Quite well, actually.  The performances (mumbles aside) are all very good, and Bridges does a good job with an interesting character.  Honestly, I think the primary actors are all worthy upgrades over the original film; the supporting cast is far better this time around (although Robert Duvall is still better than Barry Pepper), since the original film had many unmemorable bit players.  The one thing that the 1969 film did better was show the developing relationship between Cogburn and Mattie; when John Wayne starts calling her "sister" in the film, you can feel a loving bond in his words.  That closeness is not shown in this version, although some affection is clear.  I also prefer the ending of the original better (not the climax, but the falling action) because it summed up the story of Mattie and Rooster so well.  The Coens made a very grim and gritty Western, but they did so at the cost of the sweet sibling-ish relationship between the two lead characters.

That said, this is a very good movie, and it is a Western that will appeal to those that are not already fans of the genre (read: women).  It is funny in many parts, with sharp dialogue and three characters that mesh well together.  It is painfully raw and brutal in other parts, with uncompromising violence and some truly nightmarish dental prosthetics.  And, despite all of that, it is a story of accomplishment, above all else.  Does this eclipse the original movie?  No, but it certainly makes a case as a deserving peer.