This movie is true to L Ron Hubbard's novel. It not only conveys the book's atmosphere, but also its satire. John Travolta is brilliant as Terl, with his fixation on "leverage", status and rats. It's a study in the fantastic and yes, it IS meant to be funny in many places. You just have to look closely to see parallels between the Psychlos, and some of the sadder specimens in modern human society...
The special effects are also convincing: Travolta and Whitaker really do manage to be eight foot aliens for a couple of hours!
Battlefield Earth is a very fast-paced film, and even though it only reached the halfway mark in the book (wait for the sequel), there's a great deal of action and data to assimilate: keep up or be left behind. An extra half hour would have left us less breathless - particularly if we haven't read the book - and we could have savoured Terl's plottings for just a little longer.
Battlefield Earth may be in a similar SF genre to Soylent Green, the Planet of the Apes series, or THX 1138 -and probably more of a classic. It illustrates a pretty dystopian future for Earth and the galaxy, so despite Johnny Goodboy's heroism it may best lie alongside that 'blacker' class of film, rather than the good clean-shaven futuristic swashbuckling of Star Wars or Independence Day. Watch out for the satire, follow the outrageous intrigues, and be entertained.
The special effects are also convincing: Travolta and Whitaker really do manage to be eight foot aliens for a couple of hours!
Battlefield Earth is a very fast-paced film, and even though it only reached the halfway mark in the book (wait for the sequel), there's a great deal of action and data to assimilate: keep up or be left behind. An extra half hour would have left us less breathless - particularly if we haven't read the book - and we could have savoured Terl's plottings for just a little longer.
Battlefield Earth may be in a similar SF genre to Soylent Green, the Planet of the Apes series, or THX 1138 -and probably more of a classic. It illustrates a pretty dystopian future for Earth and the galaxy, so despite Johnny Goodboy's heroism it may best lie alongside that 'blacker' class of film, rather than the good clean-shaven futuristic swashbuckling of Star Wars or Independence Day. Watch out for the satire, follow the outrageous intrigues, and be entertained.