Mother's Day weekend, out of town late until Thursday, no advanced screenings . . . could I be the only guy on the planet who rolled out of bed early and skipped lunch to squeeze in a show of Battlefield Earth?

I don't regret it though. This delightfully silly piece of sci-fi schlock delivers enough moments of camp insanity to keep bad movie fans satisfied at least until the next Bruckheimer production. Based on a novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, and starring and produced by Scientologist John Travolta, Battlefield Earth has been plagued by accusations that it is merely propaganda for that quasi-religion. I would challenge anyone who considers leveling such charges to see the film first--if they can find one coherent idea in the picture, Scientologist or otherwise, then charge away. Otherwise I say grab a popcorn and get a giggle or two.

The premise holds some promise . . . the year is 3000, and some time ago the Earth was conquered by the Psychlos, who we know are evil because their name sounds like "psychos". Remaining humans hide out in the hills, their civilization reduced to hooting and wooden gates and crude leather garb (not the shiny black leather of advance techno-futures, but rather the crummy brown leather of primitive dystopian futures.)

In what was once Colorado, one daring man named Jonnie (Barry Pepper) ventures away from the safety of his village (I can't remember why), which leads to some amusing scenes where he and two traveling companions wander through a miniature golf course and an old mall. A primitive future's take on the year 2000 could be a rich area for satire, but it is, alas, underexploited here. Too quickly Jonnie and his buddies are taken captive by the Psychlos and shipped to Denver to be slave labor.

Pepper's a rather dull lead, but fortunately the focus of the film is more on Terl (John Travolta), the head security officer for the Psychlos in Denver. With his number two, Ker (Forest Whitaker), Terl hams it up ceaselessly . . . it seems that the Psychlos' main form of recreation is screwing one another over, and there are some half a dozen very similar scenes in which one guy has video tape on another guy, or one guy says "I wouldn't ask you to stay in this awful place another 5 cycles," and when the other guy gets happy, he continues, "I'm going to make you stay here for fifty cycles!" A generous amount of the dialogue reads exactly like that.

Terl is hatching a plot to steal some gold from a mine outside Denver and keep it from his superiors . . . to do this, apparently, he needs to stick one of the captive humans on a learning machine which teaches him such useful info as the Psychlos' language, how to operate Psychlos weaponry, and how to blow up the Psychlos and wipe out their civilization. He chooses to impart this knowledge to Jonnie, and, in a plot twist you'll never see coming, Jonnie decides to use this information to blow up the Psychlos and wipe out their civilization.

The action scenes stink, few of the human characters display any personality, and the film has a dull, dreary look to it. Fortunately, whenever those wacky Psychlos are on the screen, plotting and scheming against each other, the film has a kind of demented charm. But Travolta doesn't save all the best moments for himself--his wife Kelly Preston has a cameo as a naughty secretary, and Travolta lovely bequeaths to her the best (i.e., worst) line in the film, when she says to him "I'm going to keep you as happy as a baby Psychlo on a strict diet of Kerblango" before snaking out a two-foot tongue and teasing all over his body.

Yes, it's that kind of movie. God bless Hollywood, man.