Millennium

John Varley adapted his own science fiction short story "Air Raid," but failed to make it intelligible. Here's the basic idea: future Earthlings travel back in time to remove people from impending air crashes, so that they can be put on ice, so to speak, to begin a future generation. Because of the complexity of time travel, changes in history bring on small to major timequakes in the future. When Bill Smith (Kris Kristofferson) discovers a hand stunner left in the debris of a crashed plane, future time traveller Louise Baltimore (Cheryl Ladd) must go back in time to meet Smith and prevent him from discovering the future weapon. For reasons quite unexplainable this means that audiences have to sit through scenes of Kristofferson and Ladd having coffee, making small talk, and puffing an after-sex cigarette. Twice. Think about it. We're not talking Bogie and Bacall here. The problem with Millennium is that that's how long the movie feels like. And the movie isn't shortened at all by the wooden leads. What can you say about a film whose best performance is delivered by a robot in a bit part? Not recommended. (R. Pitman)