Travolta-itus: Movie Cancer
By James
Would you hire this man?Some people would call John Travolta a poor actor. Most would call him the crushing suck and altogether unholy virus of the film world. And they would be right. When the name 'Travolta' comes to mind, only two questions come to mind:
How can someone possibly produce so much bad film?
Why do people keep hiring him?
When reflecting on my DVD collection, which is considerably large, I can see two movies in which John Travolta appears, and these are probably his only good movies. By the way, when I say 'his only good movies' I mean 'movies which he acted in, but his acting was not poor enough to ruin'. The movies are Pulp Fiction and Face/Off. Anyway, I won't go into the movies right now, because my friends we are going on to a horrible journey into John Travolta's movie credits.
Note: I'm sure a missed a number of movies, the reason for this is that I would have to shoot myself, for my inability to live with myself after I had done some research on John Travolta. As long as I have control over my body and have my own computer, the address http://www.john-travolta.com will never appear under my history.
Swordfish
Unfortunately, Halle Berry and a pre-fame Hugh Jackman were not enough to stand up Travolta's undeniable movie bitch-smack. This movie had the staple weakly delivered Travolta dialogue, coupled with action scenes where he took out at least 8 guys. Come on, there is no way anyone in the world is ever going to buy that, after watching Grease.
This movie also suffered from a bit of a sabotage from within, as it was a movie about fanatical American jingoism/patriotism, but cast Vinnie Jones (the most English of all actors) as one of them.
However, in all it's suck, perhaps the thing that killed this movie off was the fact that when the entire world rejoiced at Travolta's helicopter exploding (apparently with him in it), we get to see an ending, whereby he isn't actually dead. This has to be the ultimate irritant.
Basic
This movie came out rather recently. Unfortunately, John Travolta is not wine, nor anything like it, he's more like Non-preservative Beetroot and Celery Juice.
My theory on Basic is that originally, the movie was only 45 minutes long. But, realising that the movie was too short and that there was way too much Travolta screen time, they just added 50 more plot twists before finally culminating in an ending (stop! Spoiler to shitty movie alert!) that consists of every single cast member eating dinner together. Officially, the worst. ending. ever.
Battle Field Earth
I'm finding myself at a loss here. Although probably the worst movie the world has ever seen, I'm all out of insults. This doesn't happen to me often, but I'm scared that I might actually make this movie sound poor by not using harsh enough comments. You see, this movie was a shit-fest.
This movie makes The Street Fighter Movie look like cinematic genius, while simultaneously cementing Travolta's career as the scathing bane of humanity's existence in a 2 hour piece of filmography.
Another thing to note is that this is the only movie where you get to see a Rastafarian version of John Travolta.
Well, like I said, there were some movies that Travolta did not invariably ruin, and so here's why these movies actually managed to casting him;
Pulp Fiction
Quentin Tarantino dialogue and Samuel L Jackson proved a formidable match for the suck that is John Travolta, as Pulp Fiction went on to become a cult classic and an altogether outstanding movie.
Travolta appears in 4 scenes in this movie;
Scene 1: He and Jackson go to kill someone who screwed over their boss
Why was it good? The original journey to the house is not overly enjoyable as Travolta gives a poorly delivered speech, but then things really get good when they enter the house because Travolta has only 2 lines, while Jackson is extremely funny and proceeds to say a load of cool stuff.
Scene 2: He and Uma Thurman go on a date
Why was it good? It wasn't really, but the redeeming factor was that we got to see Travolta really freak out and dance to some crap 70s music and make a galoot out of himself. We also get to see him stab Uma Thurman in the chest with a needle.
Scene 3: He waits for Bruce Willis to come home so he can kill him
Why was it good? Travolta gets shot. Multiple times
Scene 4: He and Jackson need to clean blood out of their car
Why was it good? Tarantino himself acts in this part, and entertains us while Travolta just stands there like a moose. Then after Tarantino leaves the scene, Harvey Keitel takes over the Travolta-repellant and keeps us interested while taking it in turns to shout at him with Jackson.
Face/Off
Nicholas Cage is an awesome actor, and he did what many before him had been unable to: saved the movie from the Travolta plague. The movie had a massive plus purely because we get to see Travolta get stabbed in the chest with a harpoon. That's something everyone wants to see.
Travolta is the bad guy for the majority of this movie, so the audience knows he's going to die in the end, or at least go to jail, perhaps that's what makes it so entertaining. We also get to see him perve on Cage's teenaged daughter (we get to call him a PEDO!!1111 ROLFMAO) and see him fondle Cage's ugly wife. These are all good points!
Anyway, there we go, I'm not a fan of John Travolta, rather obviously, and please keep in mind that for all the insults, I've not even mentioned Grease (oh dear god) or Saturday Night Fever, which features John Travolta in bell-bottoms and dancing for pretty much the whole movie.
