 Article
DCJ Network
Dann Blog
Decemberized
DCJ DB
Ductwars
O-Review
RI Bugs
|
| Enemy Mine [1985] - review by Alex |
|
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Starring: Dennis Quaid Louis Gossett Jr.
Country: USA
No idea why I stumbled upon this as 80's sci-fi isn't really my thing, but fortunately it's more of an adventure movie set to a sci-fi theme.
In the distant future Earth has proclaimed peace, so naturally they had to set out into space to find someone to butt heads with. As they explored deeper into the cosmos, the natural inhabitants didn't take too kindly to their presence, and a continuing war ensued.
During one dogfight, a pilot and his co-pilot chase one of the alien Draks down towards a planet and collide. The Drak escapes in a pod, but the pilots make an emergency landing on the surface. The co-pilot doesn't make it, so the remaining survivor heads off to follow the trail of smoke left by the Drak's pod. A short while later, he finds the alien near a fishing hole and tries to finish the job with some fuel, but is captured since the Drak is seemingly fireproof.
The human becomes the slave for a while, but after building some shelter and gathering food, they form an uneasy alliance at first. Slowly they learn each other's language enough to communicate. As the season progresses and winter arrives, they find themselves in harsher situations, and the Drak spontaneously becomes pregnant. We're not meant to understand the why, but it's a plot point and a rather important one at that.
At a running length of almost two hours, there's plenty of time for character development, but when certain events happen and there's still and hour left, you wonder where it can go. After a while, it's like watching two movies, and you'll almost forget that the movie started with a spaceship. Also to avoid confusion, there is an actual mine in the plot, despite the title referring to the possessive pronoun. While I like mindless action movies, once in a while it's nice to have one that deals with some of the more traditional literary devices. Even if it's still about pregnant male aliens that talk through flem vibrations.
Tags: Aliens
Sci-fi
|
| Comments |
|
|
|
