Millennium (1989) Kris Kristofferson & The Cyberpunk Charlie’s Angel

Ex trucker Kris Kristofferson reminisces back to his old rig with a joyful smile. They were the days, stuck in a convoy traveling down the highway. Sat up high, blasting his horn and chatting to friends, Spider Mike and Widow Woman on his CB radio. Six years working on this new job as the chief investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board had taken its toll on poor Kris. Depressed, tired and desperate to get out, he’d promised himself a vacation. Maybe even quit all together.

He just had to find out what happened to the doom flight of a crashed US passenger airliner. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary but no one else was available, so it was old Kris again! Once they can find the black box recording and deduce what the problem was, he could go pack his bags and chill on a Bahamas beach with a nice cold beer. He’d deserved it. It was a hard, morbid, stressful job.

Well Kris’s life was gonna change for sure and before he knew it he was smooching one of Charlie’s Angels? None other than Farrah Fawcett’s kid sister Cheryl Ladd. Things were looking up for Kris already. Little did he know he gets to spend another night with her from another camera angle. Just a shame he won’t remember that night of sauciness.

Kris Kristofferson – “The first rule is: Never sleep with anyone who’s crazier than you are. I don’t know if you’re crazier, but you’re right up there on the top 10 of my weird list, lady.”
Cheryl Ladd – “If you knew me better, I’d be number one.”

Cheryl Ladd is from the future. A thousand years to tell the truth. She’s a time traveling chain-smoking cyberpunk. Earth is a total mess and the future humans aren’t much better. Pollution has become so bad that future Earth has become infertile, the human race is slowly dying. They have become desperate people. Trying to extend life with science and plastic surgery, resulting in freaky skinjobs and bizarre test tube life support units.

Their advances in technology has resulted in the ability to time travel. And with the help from a creepy guy called Coventry (Brent Carver) and his oddball crappy looking robot friend Sherman (Robert Joy) they desperately need to save the human population. The last of the youth, Cheryl Ladd and her gang have been trained to return to pockets in time to retrieve doomed people. Abducting people before they are killed. Fertile human’s to have another go at populating the world in a far off future.

Tagline – Beyond the boundaries of time… they are waiting for you!

As always the good old-time paradox comes up. With every action, be prepared for a reaction. Quakes in time cause tremendous stain on the future. Small ones are dealable but my gawd they don’t want to get into an unresolvable paradox territory! A force infinity timequake would destroy the world and wipe any chance of humankind future. Lucky Kris is here. Kris Kristofferson is cool as a cucumber. With all the sights this guys sees, he doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. Maybe this was the holiday he’s been waiting for?

• Directed by Londoner Michael Anderson who was no stranger to science fiction having directed 1976’s Logan’s Run but also 1956 take on George Orwell’s classic novel 1984. He’s probably best known for making Around The World In 80 Days and the bouncing bomb movie with the famous signature tune (amongst other things!!) The Dam Busters.
• The film is based on a short story by science fiction writer John Varley called Air Raid he’s wrote in 1977. He later went on to expand the story into the novel Millennium in 1983 which gained him a nomination for a Philip K Dick Award.
• Now this is crazy, as I was watching it, Douglas Trumbull’s sci-fi film Brainstorm crossed my mind. Maybe it was a computer-brain interface or meddling time travelers but when I read after the film that Douglas Trumbull had originally been attached to the production it freaked me right out. How strange!

Yeah I might look cheap but I’m really good at things! Honest!

Yeah of course this film is cheesy and a bit silly but they really went to town on the future world set design. From the walkways, to lines of computers with hybrid human/cyborgs? It’s crazy the amount of effort gone into the body sized test tube pod room. I guess that’s where poor Sherman’s budget went! Cheryl Ladd looks like she’s having a blast playing different versions of herself and poor Kris just looks bored out of his mind but he did get to smooch Miss Ladd. This is another very entertaining 80’s sci-fi movie which I can’t believe how I missed it! Fun and a few big smiles were had.