Enemy Mine USA, PG-13, 108 m, 1985
A slack though handsomely mounted cosmic love story. A hundred or so years in the future, Earth’s design to lay claim to other worlds has been contested by the slimy, reptilian hermaphrodites from the Draco star system. A fierce dogfight between a human, Willis E. Davidge (Dennis Quaid), and a Drac, Jeriba Shigan (Louis Gossett, Jr.), results in the two space pilots becoming marooned on an inhospitable desert planet. To survive the hellish atmosphere, the enemies must relinquish their prejudices and pull together. Little ones expecting a bunch of Star Wars-style space battles are bound to be disappointed as all that kind of stuff is over before the second quarter of the first reel. The next hour or better is used up with Davidge and Jeriba (or “Jerry,” as Davidge calls him) getting to know each other. There’s some business in the last act involving a slave mine, which was added at the behest of the producers as they feared most moviegoers were too thick to realize the word “mine” in the movie’s title was a possessive pronoun. This is Hell in the Pacific restaged in outer space, and while it may mean well, it feels all too obvious and formulaic. Acting kudos go to Gossett, who gives a nuanced performance despite having to act beneath head-to-toe foam-latex appliances. Enemy Mine’s original director was Richard Loncraine, who was canned over creative differences and replaced by Wolfgang Petersen. The consequential re-shoots drove the production well over budget and delayed the film’s release by a year. A pity that all that time and money resulted in such a mediocre offering. © Copyright 2007 by Edward Larsen Terkelsen. All rights reserved.
|