Having been a sci-fi fan all my life, I read L. Ron Hubbard's novel Battlefield Earth in high school, and got myself thoroughly psyched for its film adaptation. At the time, I was never really all that interested in things like plot holes, logic, or in-depth storytelling; I just wanted to see cheap CGI and random stuff blowing up. So naturally, the film delivered!
The older and wiser I get, the more I see how bad the Battlefield Earth film really is. However, I never found it boring; the film has its share of action and spectacle, especially in the last act, which features cool harrier jets flying around shooting things up! The film suffers a little drag in the middle, but otherwise, I always found it fairly engaging.
The story is not a bad adaptation of L. Ron Hubbard's book, per se. A lot of the film's scenes and concepts are translated effectively from the novel. That being said, the film only covers the first half of the book, and it does muck things up a bit; the film's exposition is scatter-brained, and completely lacking in some areas, making most scenes appear random and lacking in logic. The film never really explains that Psychlo air explodes upon contact with radiation, so the ending doesn't really make sense. The film never explains much about the Psychlo corporate system or their obsession for gold. The film shows a little blip about Jonnie's father, but it serves little purpose. Worst yet, the film takes some really stupid shortcuts: it takes a huge suspension of disbelief when the humans use a flight simulator to become avionic experts. With all the stupid things the humans do to achieve victory, the film makes the Psychlos out to be even more stupid, as they sit back and let themselves be routed.
All minor nitpicks aside, the film's story has a good enough structure, but the characters are as shallow as they can be.
The filmmakers went really happy with the Dutch camera angles; nearly every shot is angled or tilted in some really funky way. Aside from that, the shots are pretty solid, and editing is okay. Acting is pretty silly: Barry Pepper probably offers the best and most earnest performance here, but can only do so much with what he's given. John Travolta is the big star here, but his performance is infamously cheesy. Writing generally gets the gist of the original novel down, but flounders with the smaller details, rendering the plot rather flimsy and stripping away the power of the dialogue. This production uses some rather cheap sets, props, costumes, and special effects, although at times it doesn't show as badly. I think this film actually has decent designs and a very interesting color scheme, but it also tends to be a bit gaudy at times. Music is not bad.
Battlefield Earth is an awesome novel that deserves to be an awesome film. This film gets so much right and so much wrong at the same time; as a fan of the book, and a sci-fi fan in general, I found the film enjoyable enough, and I was hoping for a sequel to tackle the last half of the novel. Obviously, that'll never happen. The best I can hope for now is a remake that could to perfect justice to the story. As it is, this film will suffice as the ultimate guilty pleasure.
3/5 (Entertainment: Good | Story: Marginal | Film: Poor)
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