Millennium - Die 4. Dimension

30th Anniversary: 1989 - the Best Year in Cinema Marathon Film #65/100: "Millennium" (1st Viewing.) I swore I saw this before, but only remember the plane scene. Maybe, it was the TV show. I would've remembered more as this movie was pretty darn good. I enjoyed this take on time travel. Not perfect, but my interest was never lost throughout and I loved the female lead, Cheryl Ladd. Worth watching once...every thousand years or so.

The ratings on this movie are very poor, but don't be fooled this is a great movie. As I was watching this movie, I actually expected most people wouldn't get it because time-travel pictures are usually too confusing for people with linear minds. If a movie doesn't travel in a straight line from beginning to end, then linear people start hyperventilating. Time travel concepts require a slightly more abstract mind to follow properly, and more than a 2-second attention span.

There was some good comedy in the movie. For example the android Sherman, who looked like he came right out of a 1950's B-movie. Then there was the joke about how the people from the future had to smoke in order to stay healthy, otherwise the air in the past was too clean and pure for them. You disposed of the cigarettes by just tossing them over your shoulders and a point laser would shoot at it and disintegrate it instantly. Also this was definitely a 1980's movie, you could tell just by the hairstyles, which were good for a few laughs.

And for a movie made on the cheap, the special effects weren't half-bad. They certainly weren't comparable to today's CGI effects, but they were of a generation of special effects that made Star Wars so successful.

Their interpretation of time travel concepts was also very interesting. For example, they chose to represent time paradoxes as "temporal quakes". I suppose this was done as a dramatisation technique to show the audience how serious a temporal paradox was in terms they could commonly understand (i.e. like an earthquake).

Don't be fooled by the linear minds giving this movie a bad review, if you have an abstract mind, then you'll love this movie.

This is a neat "what's going on here" mystery with plenty of clues, if you watch closely. The time travel premise is great and the story is told from the perspective of present day. That is, until the secret is revealed. Then the mysterious parts are retold, in flashback, from the perspective of the future. Kris is OK, Cheryl is wonderful (as usual), and Travanti almost steals the show.

Here's a guilty pleasure for science-fiction buffs: Kris Kristofferson plays a plane crash investigator who becomes involved with a mysterious woman (the smoldering Cheryl Ladd, looking quite the fox); turns out she's a time-traveling visitor from the future who rescues doomed passengers aboard crippled airliners, replacing them with lookalike corpses. Intriguing premise gets a decent treatment on a medium-sized budget. The plot threads are wound fairly tight and the story plays out satisfyingly. Daniel J. Travanti is terrific in support as a wily physicist and time travel specialist with a Cheshire cat-like grin; Kristofferson is quite commendable, and Ladd is frequently amazing. A real sleeper, and an entertaining slice of '80s cinema. *** from ****

This film is not as bad as the comments here indicate. Good premise and a few comedic touches enhance this time travel tale starring Cheryl Ladd (who, in my opinion is an very underrated actress) and Kris Kristofferson. I have to admit that although the (not so) special effects could have been better and the last line at the end should have been left out, it's still a memorable film that will entertain most time travel fans. Exterior scenes were filmed in Toronto although the setting is supposed to be Minneapolis.

I wasn't expecting much so maybe that's why I enjoyed it.

"Take a chance, Louise"

7/10