Millennium (1989)

[5]

Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd star in this sci-fi yarn about people from the future who travel into the past to kidnap the passengers of doomed plane crashes right before they die. When Kristofferson, a plane crash investigator, discovers future technology among the wreckage of a recent flight, the future sends a woman (Ladd) to intervene… and the two fall in love.

Millennium is a supremely weird fucking flick. I love the concept of kidnapping doomed passengers, especially when you learn why it’s being done. I also like the way the script is structured – a little nonlinear with shades of Groundhog Day. I also loved that the movie could be anywhere remotely interesting given its ridiculously poor production values. The special effects are awful and the costume & hairstyling look straight out of the ’70s. You’d never guess this movie were made in 1989, I swear to God. When I put in the DVD and saw goofy looking robots and bad facial prosthetics on the menu, I almost took the disc out. But I didn’t. And for a while, I was glad. Because Millennium surprised me for about an hour or so.

But then Millennium decides it really wants to be a love story. And that’s a damned shame. Because the dialogue is awful, the two stars aren’t convincing as lovers, and the finale of the movie is so overwrought that you almost forget anything you might have ever liked about the movie. I mean, there’s literally a psychedelic space montage a-la-2001 that ends with Kristofferson and Ladd, both shirtless and embracing, rotoscoped (badly) against a heavenly orange sky. I’m sorry, but when I get to heaven, the last thing I want to see is Kris Kristofferson. Shirt, no shirt, Ladd, no Ladd. Just no.

Despite its shitty veneer and ridiculous love story subplot, Millennium is still kinda interesting. Genuinely so for a while, and then later in a ‘so bad it’s good’ kind of way.