Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41157 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-03-28
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Running time: 108 minutes

From Amazon.com
Time-hoppers from the future, led by Cheryl Ladd, are abducting airline passengers about to crash, and transporting them a millennium hence in order to reseed a future blighted by environmental disaster. This is a dangerous business, plagued by the specter of accidentally creating time paradoxes, which could throw the future out of whack. Unfortunately, they've lost a couple of the stunners they use to subdue troublesome passengers, and these fall into the hands of a curious physicist (Daniel J. Travanti) and an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board (Kris Kristofferson). Cheryl Ladd must retrieve these devices before a time paradox wipes out her world, but manages to complicate things by developing a romance with Kristofferson. All of which is very intriguing, having come from the short story, "Air Raid," by science fiction luminary John Varley, who also is credited with the screenplay. The part about airline abductions to save the disastrous future is straight from the original story, and the rest is expanded (you wouldn't say extrapolated) from it. The results are not very happy. About a third of the film is maddeningly wasted by repeating action from a different point of view. Seems natural when there are disparate timelines to deal with, but here nothing is added by the conceit. Only Travanti turns in a creditable performance as the physicist, bent on proving his theories about the future. He seems hungry for discovery, which is one of the things you want from a science fiction story, that sense of awe. But here it's just, "Aw, shucks!" --Jim Gay

On the DVD
16:9 widescreen
2.0 Dolby Surround
Digitally mastered
Interactive menus
Scene access
Alternate ending
Theatrical trailer
Production notes
Cast & crew information

Synopsis
Where has director Michael Anderson been since Logan's Run? Earning his keep on such slick TV-style time-fillers as Millennium. Kris Kristofferson plays the head of an official committee investigating the head-on collision of two commercial jets. A thorough analysis reveals the presence of a weapon of unknown origin in the wreckage; it is also pointed out that some of the victims' watches are running backwards. This, coupled with the cryptic warnings by flight attendant Cheryl Ladd to drop the investigation, prompts Kristofferson to burrow further and uncover the truth: Ladd is a sentinel from 1000 years in the future, who has come back to the 20th Century to help repopulate her dying civilization. Plot pegs and obstacles are in the hands of such sideline characters as enigmatic professor Daniel Travanti and amiable android Robert Joy. Millennium was adapted by John Varley from his own story Air Raid. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Customer Reviews

Sherman, send the gate
We are medially confronted with a midair plain crash. In the confusion the navigator goes back into the cabin and 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 and filming remind me of a Hallmark romance movie which just happens to have a sci-fi background.

Millennium is a thinking man's scifi flick
This movie is actually better than what others might think. But it requires your complete attention, and for a generation of people who are used to in-your-face MTV type short-attention span stuff, then skip this flick. However, I have shown this DVD on several occasions to groups of friends, and everyone enjoyed trying to figure out what was going on, and were surprised as I was, when time - travel was implicated. Cheryl Ladd was quite good as a cynical flight attendant, and Kris Kristofferson was believable as a man burned out on his job. I only with Travanti had more to do. Still, I highly recommend this flick to people who like to think when they watch a scifi flick.

Interesting to a Point -- a Twilight Zone story w/o the feel
You've read the "official" review and to be honest, I don't wholly agree or disagree. First, I like both Kristopherson's and Ladd's performances. They fit the characters nicely. The replay of the same sequence from another angle answers all of the questions about what is going on, and is the only thing that turns a rather short, straightforward featurette into a full-length feature.

Conceivably, more time could have been spent investigating the wreckage (and similar wreckages) before revealing the time travelers from the future. Also, why don't they fix these ripples, instead of trying to escape them?

So there are some questions. If I could, I'd give this one 2-1/2 stars, not three, but I won't drop it all the way to two, mostly because no one else has done this exact story, unless it was Rod Serling in the original Twilight Zone series, but I don't think so... there are similar stories, to be sure, and time travel stories, but not in this combination.

Which puts this film into the "Twilight Zone" category for me. There are so many places where they could have made this one better, I have to wonder why no one has done a remake...

Still, it is part of my collection and if you are SF buff, then don't leave this off your list of films to consider without at least watching it.