Avis Metacritic

Although you probably haven't heard much about Enemy Mine this season, you might want to check it out. You'll be pleasantly surprised. [23 Dec 1985, p.C2]

It may be a long way to go to a distant sun system to get to a familiar place, but the $33 million project is largely successful in establishing a satisfying bond.

If you are a science-fiction fan (and I am), Enemy Mine is a fun diversion, maintaining a precarious balance between laughable and melodramatic. But you do get the feeling they had hoped for an earth-shaking metaphor. [27 Dec 1985, p.21]

Enemy Mine is one of my favorite sci-fi films.

The movie has the potential to be a truly great story about communication between alien species; it could have been a space thriller with a mind and a heart. Instead, it gives us an alien that is too human, too familiar. It takes that amazing planet and gives it food, water, gravity and atmosphere that are suitable for both humans and Dracs. It depends on plot gimmicks like the convenient arrival of enemies and the equally convenient arrival of friends to the rescue. It doesn't dare enough.

In trying to cover so many bets, Petersen has created a film without an identifiable style or subject of its own.

What the film lacks, however, is the epic vision to match its epic pretensions, something to bind together the action and the ideas.

A costly, awful-looking science-fiction epic with one of the weirdest story lines ever to hit the screen.

One of the largest wastes of money ever. More than $33 million was spent on this futuristic version of THE DEFIANT ONES or HELL IN THE PACIFIC, both infinitely superior films. The basic flaw is that its premise is older than your great-grandfather's hat.