Customer Reviews
Millenium - By: Mrs. K. Sims, 24 Jun 2007 
I thought this film might have some promise from the description & comment. At the end of the end of the film & the desperately poor plot, I cannot believe I had watched it right through!!!! As a Sci Fi type film, it had little to capture the imagination, & when the end suddenly happened, I was shocked as i thought there might be so much more to the film. It was almost like watching a TV episode of something. Thumbs down for this movie from me! I cannot imagine what the hollywood stars were doing signing up to this script.
Film version of a story by John Varley - By: Marshall Lord, 26 Sep 2006 
John Varley's time travel story "Millennium" which came out both as this film & as a full length novel with the same title in the 1980's is one of his best pieces of writing.
Varley's initial concept was first published as the short story "Air Raid" & he was commissioned to write the screenplay for this film version: at about the same time he published an extended version of the short story, lining up with the film but including some rather broader themes & more detail in several areas, as the novel "Millennium."
If you have read the novel & are wondering whether the DVD measures up, it was not practical for the film makers to get the full scope of the novel into this film adaptation, but they did a pretty good job. Most of the political comments about air safety in the book, particularly those about the battle between Ronald Reagan & the air traffic controllers did not make it into this film, & neither did the quasi-religious aspects of the book. But most of the guts of the story did.
In particular, the film is faithful to the plot & tone of the novel, including both the central romance & some of the most gripping action scenes. Both the book & the film capture brilliantly some of the most memorable scenes in the story, & incorporate one or two quite funny moments, none of which I can begin to describe without spoiling the plot.
Kris Kristofferson is excellent as an air crash investigator, who discovers some unusual anomalies in the wreck of an aircraft. Cheryl Ladd is equallly brilliant as the mysterious woman who sleeps with him & then disappears. As the story continues we learn more about the investigator's past, & why the mysterious woman reminds him so much of someone he remembers from his childhood.
I can recommend both the book & the film. If you might want to experience both I don't think it makes any difference in what order you do it. If you want to read the original short story "Air Raid" it is included in the collection "The Persistence of Vision" which I understand was also published as "In the Hallls of the Martian Kings."
DVD extras are a little basic: short filmographies on Kristofferson, Ladd, & one or two other people, a short synopsis of what the producer was trying to do, & an alternative ending, which differs only in the backdrop to the Winston Churchill quote which provides the very last words of the film.
Varley made a joke about this book (and film) in one of his much more recent novels, "Mammoth" which I can also highly recommend.
Sherman, send the gate - By: B. Chandler, 10 Jul 2006 We are mediallly confronted with a midair plain crash. In the confusion the navigator goes back into the cabin & is horrified by something. All we see is a staring device sliding along the floor "MILLENNIUM".
Bill Smith investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board (Kris Kristofferson) is dispatched to the crash scene. he must make since of things that do not add up to a normal crash. Meanwhile he is being asked about the anomalies by a physicist (Daniel J. Travanti) that seems to know moiré than he is letting on. And to make things more complicated he is being sidetracked by a female airline employee (Cheryl Ladd) that does not seem to do everything from driving to eating awkwardly.
Bill wonders if he is tired, paranoid or is there something that is just not normal?
The music & filming remind me of a Halllmark romance movie which just happens to have a sci-fi background.
