{"id":5884,"date":"2012-12-10T01:34:26","date_gmt":"2012-12-10T06:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=5884"},"modified":"2012-12-10T01:34:26","modified_gmt":"2012-12-10T06:34:26","slug":"br-enemy-mine-1985","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=5884","title":{"rendered":"BR: Enemy Mine (1985)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>E<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Weak\/ BR Transfer: Good\/ BR Extras: Excellent<\/p>\n

Label: Twilight Time\/ Region: All \/\u00a0Released: October 9, 2012<\/p>\n

Genre: Science-Fiction<\/p>\n

Synopsis: Rival fighter pilots stranded on a rocky planet must cooperate to survive the elements and the arrival of an unexpected gift.<\/p>\n

Special Features: \u00a0Stereo Isolated Music Track \/ Theatrical Trailer \/ 8-page colour booklet with liner notes by film historian Julie Kirgo \/ Limited to 3000 copies \/ Available exclusively from Screen Archives Entertainment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Enemy Mine<\/strong> has evolved into a cinematic curio which either maintains a strong pull on viewers charmed by its humanistic story of two rival cultures forced to cooperate and comingle to survive on a desolate planet, or is still assessed by unmoved critics as a $40 million dud whose messy production woes began when original director Richard Loncraine (Brimstone and Treacle<\/strong>, Wimbledon<\/strong>) was fired by studio Fox.<\/p>\n

Replacement director Wolfgang Petersen had just completed the kid-friendly fable The Neverending Story<\/strong> (1984), and his decision to scrap all of the existing footage (shot in Iceland and Hungary), original makeup design and sets and start from scratch further delayed the production\u2019s completion. Fox\u2019s predicament, however, was simple: stars Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett Jr. had classic pay-or-play deals, so the gamble to restart production seemed worthwhile, given the existing talent pool couldn\u2019t possibly deliver a clunky, discontinuous mess.<\/p>\n

Whereas Loncraine\u2019s approach was reportedly rather grim, Petersen chose to treat the story as a classic sci-fi pulp tale, not unlike Byron Haskin\u2019s Robinson Crusoe on Mars<\/strong> (1964), using saturated colours and obvious indoor sets that, deliberately or not, evoke the tongue-in-cheek qualities of vintage sci-fi.<\/p>\n

Based on a story by Barry Longyear, the screenplay by Edward Khmara (Ladyhawke<\/strong>, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story<\/strong>) is a bit of a hybrid, using the basic hook of rival soldiers trapped on an island from John Boorman\u2019s WWII drama Hell in the Pacific<\/strong> (1968), and extending the stay of revised characters Davidge (Quaid) and alien Drac Jeriba (Gossett) so the filmmakers could explore the emerging brotherly relationship in a riff on Daniel DaFoe\u2019s Robinson Crusoe<\/strong>. Instead of a nihilistic finale, Khmara offers hope through the birth of an alien child which is cared for and later rescued by Quaid\u2019s character from evil human miners.<\/p>\n

Dennis Quaid\u2019s animated\u00a0 performance style sort of works with Khmara\u2019s sometimes jokey dialogue, but Gossett still looks like an actor trapped under a layer of scaly latex. Gossett can only emote using his voice, his eyes, and his mouth, and while Chris Walas\u2019 costume isn\u2019t restrictive, it still lends a cartoon quality to the character, especially when Gossett\u2019s asexual creature becomes glowingly pregnant, and gives birth.<\/p>\n

Audience members open to the film\u2019s plot twist welcomed the emerging themes of responsibility and cultural exchange, but it gets a bit precious, and the Drac\u2019s biology is kind of fuzzy in construction: the alien reproductive cycle is kept vague \u2013 there\u2019s neither an explanation of the species\u2019 evolution nor elaboration of how Drac fighter pilots cope with career and the mortal experience of childbirth \u2013 as is their actual lifespan, since the captured aliens in the rogue mining operation vary from adults to seniors.<\/p>\n

Although capable of building ships to sustain their stewardship of space, the concept of preserving a Drac family lineage comes not through printed text or digital storage but song \u2013 which gets a bit squirmy when Gossett and later Quaid indulge in some alien vocalizing.<\/p>\n

The Fox-preferred child-rescue ending feels tacked on and choppy, and Davidge\u2019s itinerant narration is suddenly replaced by another voice in the final sequence where the human returns the alien offspring to his biological birthplace \u2013 a finale that was also (reportedly) longer and more detailed in the Loncraine version.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a sense Petersen was struggling to find a balance between a comic book screenplay aspiring to argue mature themes; PG-rated creature designs reminiscent of Neverending Story<\/strong>; and his own emerging flaws as a director: a knack for fast-moving adult action and graphic screen violence, but a lack of recognizing maudlin drama and bathos \u2013 two key elements which make Poseidon<\/strong> (2006) his worst film to date.<\/p>\n

Enemy Mine<\/strong> is also unbalanced in the way trimmed-down gore (arrow through the neck, severed ear, industrial equipment trauma) is integrated with the juvenile puppetry (cutesy, multi-eyed invertebrates devoured by a subterranean predator not dissimilar in style and behaviour to a Muppet).<\/p>\n

It could be argued the simplified conflicts and the fuzzily explained creature biology helped make the relationship between human and alien more pronounced, but Enemy Mine<\/strong> remains a deeply flawed work. Its cult status has steeped over the years, but it\u2019s hardly the much-maligned masterpiece argued by its most ardent supporters.<\/p>\n

Twilight Time\u2019s Blu-ray is sourced from a really nice HD master, and although the print does have some visible dirt in the opening reel, the colours and details are strong. The sound design in both 2.0 and 5.1 is quite broad, and Maurice Jarre\u2019s score manages to convey a kind of epic scope hinted within the script and the handful of beautiful rocky locations Petersen used for wide shots.<\/p>\n

Extras include a theatrical trailer emphasizing the film\u2019s themes of \u2018brotherhood\u2019 and \u2018responsibility\u2019 (the only things the marketing department found exploitable), and reverent liner notes by Julie Kirgo. Maurice Jarre\u2019s score is isolated in stereo, and his switch between full orchestra, synths, and a m\u00e9lange of the two instrumental elements mostly works, but his synth action cues are still a terrible racket of drunken keyboard knuckle-pounding.<\/p>\n

Within his feature film career Petersen has managed to tackle a wide variety of iconic genres, including fantasy (The Neverending Story<\/strong>), pulp sci-fi (Enemy Mine<\/strong>), film noir (Shattered<\/strong>), virus thriller (Outbreak<\/strong>), political thriller (In the Line of Fire<\/strong>), jingoistic action thriller (Air Force One<\/strong>), melodrama (The Perfect Storm<\/strong>), sword & sandal epic (Troy<\/strong>), and disaster film (Poseidon<\/strong>), but he\u2019s never managed to recapture the power and genuine dramatic gravitas of what remains his masterwork \u2013 the epic 1981 German mini-series, Das Boot<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2012 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB<\/a> — Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>: <\/span>Home <\/a>\/ <\/span>Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a>\/\u00a0E<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ E . Film: Weak\/ BR Transfer: Good\/ BR Extras: Excellent Label: Twilight Time\/ Region: All \/\u00a0Released: October 9, 2012 Genre: Science-Fiction Synopsis: Rival fighter pilots stranded on a rocky planet must cooperate to survive the elements and the arrival of an unexpected gift. Special Features: \u00a0Stereo Isolated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[1700,1699,1694,1698,512,1697,1696,1695],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1wU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5884"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5884"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5890,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5884\/revisions\/5890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}