Millennium

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

Millennium is mixed bag. The script is reasonably good - not too exciting, but thoughtful and well constructed. But there are some problems that drag the movie down.

The romance/relationship at the heart of the story is not bad, and has been unfairly panned. It's actually one of the strengths of the story. Kristofferson does a good job of playing a rather dull character without a lot going for him... a working stiff without much of a life, who wakes up a bit when he meets Cheryl Ladd's character.

Ladd underplays her part nicely, with a nice understanding of the nuances and double meanings of some of her dialogue. The directing is fine, low key, and the editing is good (apart from the ending, which I doubt was the editor's choice). The script sparkles most when it deals with Ladd's character, her difficulties in communicating across a profound cultural barrier, her inadvertently humorous faux pas when interacting with a world very different from her own. The "cigarette scene" in the restaurant is a classic.

There are some problems, mainly around the ending, some of the acting on the part of the minor characters, and the character of Sherman. I won't reveal the ending, but I will say it was disappointing, and probably responsible for the cool reception the film received. The robot Sherman is poorly designed and conceptualized, and drags down the rest of the story. It's not a question of budget, in Sherman's case, but of someone without a good intuitive feeling for science fiction concepts, making decisions about that character. He's not campy, to my mind, he's an embarrassment.

Some people posting here have complained about the dialogue. I think they may be missing the profound reason for Ladd's character's odd choices of words, and what the words reveal about her. Others have complained about the scenes that are shown twice, telling the same story from different points of view. I can understand that people looking for a more action packed movie could have been bored by these scenes, but they do reveal key information; they're not just reruns of the first, they're revelations. They're an effective device for showing the parallel but very different points of view of the key characters.

In sum, Millennium is a reasonably good but not great movie. It's frustrating because a genuinely good movie could be made from the existing footage if the robot was redone (redesigned digitally after the fact and given a better voice and better dialogue), and if the final voice-over was omitted. But I still like watching it and appreciate the elements that are successful in the movie.

There seems to be some dispute here as to whether this is a good movie or not, and it all depends on what you expect going into it. If you go see (or rent) a sci-fi movie based on an obscure short story directed by the man who had Bo Derek battling a whale in "Orca" twelve years earlier, you have to expect some campiness. Just sit back and enjoy it. The premise of the story is actually quite good, with a little environmental message slipped in. In execution, the people behind this movie must have known that they did not have the budget for a special effects-laden thrill ride, so they decided to take the stylistic approach of making it with one eyebrow raised, a bittersweet melodrama that happens to have a few plane crashes and laser beams. It's "The Goodbye Girl" with time travel. How else do you explain the smarmy robot's flat line delivery, Cheryl Ladd's hairdo, the flight attendants' costumes? Camp, camp, camp. But at the same time, the "paradox" concept gives the mind something to chew. I think director Michael Anderson knew exactly what he was doing. Had this film been marketed differently, it would have easily recouped its budget. I think it's right up there with 1982's "Q"!

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.

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.