In the 3rd edition of my “Little Known Movie Review” series, I would like to once again revisit my childhood to bring to light yet another masterpiece that I’m sure all of you miserable sons of bitches skipped because you have absolutely no taste and were probably jerking off to your VCR-recorded television broadcast of Nolan Ryan getting his 5000th strikeout on Rickey Henderson a few days before the release of this great film. I’m not knocking on you for that, mind you. I would’ve been doing the same thing myself, but I wasn’t old enough to have discovered the joys of masturbating to sports highlights yet. Anyway, my point is that you are all douchebags. All right, it’s movie time!
As hinted at with the Nolan Ryan comment, the year is 1989. Capping off a really horrendous decade for Hollywood films, this year would see a slight rebound in quality, producing several classics such as Field Of Dreams, My Left Foot, Dead Poets Society, and Glory. Still, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, when celebrating the year in film at the Academy Awards ceremony early the next year, would be sure to remind us that 1989 was indeed part of the 80’s. They did so by awarding the Best Picture Oscar to a sappy Dan Aykroyd vehicle with minor supporting performances by Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy, Driving Miss Daisy. Seriously, Academy? A movie about a crotchety old racist Southerner with Alzheimer’s mentally abusing her African American chauffeur deserves the Best Picture award? I’m sure Jesse Jackson was rolling in his grave. Randy Jackson, however, was too busy rockin’ out with Journey to notice.
Anyway, once again, the Academy and the general public missed out on a major cinematic milestone in 1989. I am speaking of the August 25th release of the sci-fi masterpiece Millennium. Okay, I will admit up front that I haven’t seen this movie in probably more than fifteen years, and I was confused even then, but I’ll give this a shot. In the future, the entire human population of Earth has been rendered sterile through years of pollution. Because of this fact, the human race is dying out. In order to ensure the survival of the human race, the people from the future, led by a hot, slutty blond chick in a stewardess uniform, travel back in time and kidnap people from the present who are about to die in plane crashes and bring them to the future to procreate. In order to get the present folks off of the plane, they hijack the flights before the crash and unload them, replacing them with sterile doppelgangers from the future to die in their place in the crash.
Kris Kristofferson, following his triumphant turn in the classic film Big Top Pee-wee, plays an FAA investigator who investigates the plane crashes, and he somehow meets the stewardess chick and has some raunchy sex with her, also discovering some stun gun that she has and accidentally stunning himself, causing a “timequake” that threatens to destroy the future. The blond chick then makes it her mission to stop Kristofferson from finding the stun gun and inadvertently destroying the future. Confused yet? Me too.
The movie has several typical 80’s idiosyncratic style choices that date the movie, from the blond’s weird rocker haircut a la The Legend of Billie Jean (look for my upcoming review of this turd) and a weird personal robot guy with some of the worst movie makeup ever. Seriously, this thing looks like an outcast from the Hellraiser series. Another interesting tidbit: people in the future are required to smoke cigarettes that somehow actually protect their lungs from the polluted air of the future or some shit. For some reason, Joe Camel does not make a cameo. I guess the tobacco companies didn’t want to make it that obvious that they had a hand in financing this film.
Anyway, it’s tough to imagine a film like this being made today, what with the pro-smoking, pro-hijacking agenda of the flick. Also, Kris Kristofferson has wisely steered his acting career away from ridiculous sci-fi movies like this, instead choosing to star in movies such as Blade and Planet of the Apes. Oh, wait… nevermind.
In summary, way to go, Academy. If anybody deserved a Best Supporting Actor award for a 1989 film, it had to be Robert Joy for his portrayal of Sherman the Robot. Check this film out. Sure, It’s no Logan’s Run, but it still really sucks. Enjoy, assholes.
