Battlefield Earth, based on a crappy 1982 sci-fi novel by cult religion dipshit L. Ron Hubbard, is so inept and pathetic that it should forever end any questions about the validity of Hubbard’s manufactured religion of Scientology. This grade Z movie should likewise have the effect of insuring that none of its cast, crew, or director ever be allowed to work in cinema ever again. In spite of, Scientology member and Battlefield Earth actor and producer, John Travolta’s statements about there being "no connection between Battlefield Earth and Scientology," the correlation is unavoidable. Part of Scientology’s pitch is that, 75 million years ago, an evil ruler named "Xenn" implanted evil spirits (called Thetans) inside volcanoes on Earth, and that all humans are made up of these "Thetans," which can only be removed by spending lots of money on Scientology. Chortle.

In Battlefield Earth, the year is A.D. 3000 and man is an endangered species enslaved by Klingon-styled aliens (called "Pyschlos") from the planet — you guessed it — Psychlo. Man has somehow devolved into a gloomy existence as dumb tribal cave dwellers, soon-to-be-led by dummy caveman number one, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler (Barry Pepper - Saving Private Ryan). Psychlo Earth chief, Terl (John Travolta - Pulp Fiction) is especially mean and nasty because, aside from having long stinky dreadlocks, he has just been ordered by the Psychlo "home office" to remain in command on Earth for the rest of his life rather than return to his home planet as he had planned. Terl schemes for vengeance by having his "man-animal" slaves mine enough gold that he can buy his way into becoming ruler of Psychlo. Terl makes the fateful mistake of strapping Jonnie in front of a wisdom machine that lasers vast quantities of information into Jonnie’s little "man-animal" brain. Jonnie emerges from his Clockwork Orange crash course to impart geometry rules about triangles to his cohorts. With this important (sic) information, the man-animals outsmart their keepers by waltzing into Fort Knox and removing enough gold distract Terl, so they can blow everything up and win their freedom. You can practically hear Hubbard yukking it up to himself while he wrote this crap — "yeah, that’s a pretty good ideer."

There isn’t one good scene in the whole movie, much less a scene that actually moves the story forward in any way. It’s just a bunch on nonsensical sci-fi junk dialogue and atmosphere stuck indiscriminately together. It’s about as entertaining as watching a stagnate pond. The movie plays like a bad rip-off of Xena: Warrior Princess, but without any of the jokes or even it’s ironic continuity jumps. If director Roger Christian (Nostradamus, and assistant director on Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace) had been replaced by Blaxploitation master, Rudy Ray Moore (Dolomite: The Human Tornado), Battlefield Earth might of at least had a chance of realizing its inner googly moogly B-movie potential. Rudy Ray Moore would have let Terl’s black assistant Ker (Forest Whitaker - The Crying Game) take over the whole story with lots of ha-ha villainous rapture and physical slap-stick super-action. Unfortunately, Christian can’t even make his mistakes look sincere. When a Psychlo bimbo with an 11 inch tongue walks into the same room with a different character after having just eluded to giving Terl some well-placed tongue in the previous scene, its just one more dumb continuity mistake to remind the audience of how slowly the clock is moving while they watch this torturous morass of a movie. If you thought Plan Nine From Outer Space was as bad as movies could get, think again.

Lafayette Ronald Hubbard said, "If you really want to enslave people, tell them that you’re going to give them total freedom." Battlefield Earth seems to be saying, if you really want to divert people, insult them with garbage. Both theories are terribly flawed, but the second one is easier to see through because in this day and age people can spot a bad movie quicker than they can spot corrupt religions. The only perk in Battlefield Earth is that, in this case, they are one and the same. Audiences will have the freedom to walk out of the theater on this movie, and I expect many who don’t read this review will exercise that right. I just hope they don’t for get to ask for a refund at the box-office.

Based on director John Woo’s (Broken Arrow, Face/Off) hyper-boiled rendering of screenwriter Robert Towne’s (Chinatown) razor sharp script for Mission: Impossible 2, the Mission Impossible logo hangs as a potentially worthy rival to the James Bond cinema franchise. Woo keeps similarities to director Brian De Palma’s initial 1996 Mission Impossible to a minimum in this very dissimilar sequel by incorporating his signature slow motion ballet-of-bullets action sequences against the taught resolve of Tom Cruise’s most ambitious action performance to date.

Cruise’s current performance as undercover agent Ethan Hunt is virtually unrecognizable from the excessively smiling American emissary in De Palma’s film. Where Cruise’s former character resembled more of a clean-cut stick action figure going through a series of disconnected motions, the chiseled faced actor emerges here as a hot-blooded, libido fueled street fighter with a mind like a steel trap. Hunt’s bristling physicality is articulated in every scene of the film as daredevil rock climber, bedroom seducer, and hand to hand combat master. Much has been written about Cruise’s insistence on performing many of his own stunts to the chagrin of Paramount studio execs and their insurance officers for good reason. The film’s realism of danger allows it to operate on an additional gear of believability and determination. There’s no question that Cruise was born to have his unavoidably handsome aspect blown up to fantastic proportions on giant movie screens, but here Adonis meets Bruce Lee meets Steve McQueen. Like McQueen in The Great Escape, Cruise enjoys a thrilling chase sequence on a black Triumph motorcycle which Woo captures to exquisite effect.

The plot for Mission: Impossible 2 purposefully aligns itself closer to a James Bond film than to serving as an extended version of the ’60s television show as De Palma’s film did. Rogue IMF agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott - Ever After) steals an extremely volatile German-made virus (called Chimera) to sell, along with its antidote to a bio corporation for a huge sum of money and stock options so he can release the virus on the world and make even more money selling the antidote. Ambrose’s big weakness is an uncontrollable lust for his comely ex-girlfriend and professional thief Nyah (Thandie Newton - Beloved). Ethan, too, falls for Nyah’s charms before sending her back into the belly of the beast to live with Ambrose and help recover the Chimera virus. As laughably simple-minded as the plot sounds, it’s no where near the vapidity of the first film where a simpering turncoat CIA head took pot shots at Ethan Hunt while Vanessa Redgrave suffered through bottomless scenes where she came on to every young male in her villainous clutches.

Mission: Impossible 2 is a movie that revels in the seductiveness of masculine super action with all the bells and whistles of techno-gadgets, fast cars, and explosions attached. It’s more romantic than anything in a James Bond movie and carries better Kung Fu scenes than The Matrix. As a sequel, M:I-2 links itself to the original with Ving Rhames (Out of Sight) returning as IMF agent Luther Strickell. Although Luther is stuck behind a laptop computer for most of the movie, Rhames graces the film with touches of humor under every line of his dialogue. Ethan performs an homage cabled descent from a helicopter that lands him mere inches from the floor — similar to the spider web sequence in Mission Impossible. But the strongest aspect of the movie is emphasized in Woo’s love of the duel. Ethan and Nyah fall in love while racing on a winding mountain road in an Audi TT convertible for the lady and a Porsche for Cruise. The two soon-to-be-lovers smash into one another and spin around the other in a slow motion pas de deux that exposes their mutual need for extreme danger as the only prerequisite for love. Likewise, when Hunt and Ambrose collide in a mano y mano motorcycle collision that gives way to an all out fist fight, flesh and bones are the final solution to global threat and personal freedom. John Woo’s summer blockbuster is surely the most elegant and graceful example of cinema’s technology advanced comeuppance so far.