|
-
News
- Features
- Events
Calendar
- Editorials
- Monthly
Zine
- Offworld
Report
- Our Daily
RSS Feed
- Movie/TV
Reviews
> Recent movies
> Movies by year
> Movies by title
- Book
Reviews
> Recent books
> Books by year
> Books by title
- Home
- Worlds
- Biography
- Bibliography
- Appearances
- Reviews
- Blog
- Community
- Press
- Links
Become
an Advertiser
- Web
Site Directory
- Search
the Net
- StephenHunt.net
- WoodenRocket.com
- Check
your E-mail
- Non Sci-Fi
News
|
Millennium
01/05/2004 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: DVD pub: Carlton Visual Entertainment 37115 05873. Price: varies but I got mine for £8.99 (UK). Stars: Kris Kristofferson, Cherryh Ladd and Daniel J. Travanti). check out website: www.carltonvisual.com
With absolutely no trimmings other than language adjusters, with a low price, the DVD version of this 1989 film based on John Varley's short story Air Raid scriptwrote and novelised by said author has come onto the market.
It isn't difficult to count on one hand, SF stories turned into films from live Science Fiction writers, let alone do their own screenplays.
The premise of short story, novel and film is that if you want to populate the future from the past, you take people from where they won't be missed, namely off crashing aircraft. Here, the problems arise when a future stunner weapon is left on board and a crash inspector and a physicist put together the puzzle of what it means.
Of the cast, Cherryl Ladd as Louise Baltimore from the future is both eye-catching and gives an interesting performance, especially when she forgets where she is. The scene in the dining room where she bites into an apple from the core end or throwing a burning cigarette out into the room expecting it to be laser-zapped is priceless.
I tend to see Kristofferson as a somewhat flat actor and it's very hard to tell if he's supposed to be over-tired as his part, Bill Smith, or sleep-walking the role but he lacks vitality and charisma.
The future is somewhat beautifully set. At the time it was filmed, this was Canada's biggest studio and you can see what the space was used for in bringing a whole aeroplane there to remove the passengers.
It's a shame that the depiction of the future affected by an earlier time paradox was shown to just explode rather than change radically into something worse than it is, which is a heavily polluted world falling apart. Whether this was director Michael Anderson's concession to having something spectacular happen at the end or not is debatable but this reviewer thinks it could have been done better.
This is also the first time that I have seen this film in widescreen. Never having flown by aeroplane, I tend to take it for granted when I saw it on video that hushed tones was the norm in flight or, at least, the seats absorbed the sound. At least this time, I could see a little of the passengers although it would have been helpful had we seen what the navigator saw to enforce his reality.
Undoubtedly, Millennium will end up on the cheapie shelves within a few short months and is just as likely not to have a further DVD pressing, so if you are after this film, I wouldn't hang around.
GF Willmetts
|
|
