101 BAD reviews Battlefield Earth see Battlefield Earth FAQ updated 14May00
Title: Battlefield Earth
trashed by "MEAN" Magazine
Author: jdrake_deja@dejanews.com (John Drake)
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 11:12:43 -0700
This text is from MEAN magazine, Vol 1, Number 5, Sep-Dec 1999. See also the MEAN magazine website: <http://www.meanmag.com/> by Mark EbnerMEAN Magazine's Mark Ebner took the screenplay and re-titled it as "Dark Forces by Desmond Finch."
It was then "dropped into Hollywood's time honored development pipeline
called "coverage," in which the screenplay was subjected to expert criticism
by professional Hollywood script readers."The results were:
Script Reader #1, a male reader at uber agent Mike Ovitz's management/production concern,
Artists Management Group (AMG);From Script Reader #1: "A thoroughly silly plotline is made all the more ludicrous
by its hamfisted dialogue and ridiculously shallow characterization. Functioning
only as the broadest of cartoonish stories, the script reads like a 1950šs
Earth versus the Martians film with a bit of Conan-esque heavy breathing mixed in.
The premise is fairly standard genre stuff: sort of a poor man's Independence Day.
The storyline, however, is slow-moving, predictable and obvious.
The characters are overdrawn types who behave along no consistent unified tone:
some act like mad scientists while others seem sword-wielding Xena rejects.
The dialogue is laughable,
at best, dwelling heavily on the rather obvious irony of the premise.
"The storyline functions, barely, but its slow pace never entertains or arouses
much excitement as it pauses frequently to linger on its own profundity.
The opening scenes set a bizarrely, Conan-like tone as the
silent sword-wielding young hero defies the gods and his elders by leaving the cave.
This tone is quickly made ridiculous as hero Jonnie is revealed not to be in some medieval
underworld, but wandering around the San Fernando Valley. Once he is abducted by the aliens,
the tone shifts again into its kitschy sci-fi talk as the aliens marvel at these
stupid little humans who are too dumb to speak and the ugliness of Earth's
blue Skies..., The aliens finally manage to figure out that humans are not completely brain dead,
and the humans learn not to live in fear of superstitious myths of the gods, but instead to fight for freedom,
The quasi-anti-spiritual message is a laughable attempt at high seriousness in the context of this
schlocky story. The thrills and the fights are fairly standard action sequences,...[and] the conclusion
is a thoroughly confused climax as Jonnie hatches an incomprehensibly complicated plot to defeat
the aliens." Recommendation: PASS FromScript Reader #2 is a woman who reads for a busy television/feature film production
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company."Planet of the Apes meets Total Recall with a touch of Armageddon and Independence
Day thrown in for kicks...a completely predictable story that just isnšt written well enough to make
up for its lack of originality. The basic story has been done before with a more interesting setting,
stronger characters and better dialogue. The [supporting] characters are all straight out of Central
Casting... Such miserably uninspired characters are well-suited to this exceedingly uninteresting
story. The dialogue is dull, historical allusions painful, and the few laughs Finch tries to work into the
script fall horrifyingly flat. If that weren't bad enough, Finch uses the "everything AND the kitchen
sink" approach to plotting a screen-play. Think of your least favorite cliche, and I guarantee you'll
find it in Dark Forces. "Sadly, in the age of disturbingly derivative movies, a film with plot points
from nearly every science fiction flick ever made could reign as king.... But as a screenplay, the
patchwork quilt Mr. Finch is trying to pass off as a movie is about as entertaining as watching a fly
breathe." Recommendation: PASS