Common Sense Media Review
By Brian Costello
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Awful dialogue, cheesy special effects mar '80s sci-fi movie
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 13+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
Millennium
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
In MILLENNIUM, Bill Smith (Kris Kristofferson) is an NTSB investigator sent to look into the cause of a mysterious airplane crash. As he and his assembled team attempt to make sense of the black box recording and some strange anomalies such as digital watches ticking backwards, he meets a strange, mysterious yet beautiful woman named Louise (Cheryl Ladd), a flight attendant who seems to disappear from Smith's hotel room after they spend the night together. Meanwhile, a brilliant theoretical physicist named Dr. Arnold Mayer (Daniel J. Travanti) takes an interest in the plane crash, and postulates that the abnormalities in the crash are due to time travel. Mayer is on the right track -- Louise is revealed to be from one thousand years into the future, a bleak future in which mankind dangles over the precipice of extinction, and it's up to her, with perhaps the assistance of Smith and Mayer, to save humankind.
Is It Any Good?
While the concept itself is an interesting one, the movie falls short due to awful dialogue, a muddled storyline, bad special effects, and dated haircuts that are supposed to be from the future. The amateurish production gets lost in trying to explain the relationships of the characters, the theoretical ideas and ramifications of time travel, and the underlying meaning behind it all. The characters from "the future" simply look tacky, and while it's possible to overlook bad costumes and special effects in, say, Twilight Zone episodes of the early 1960s, nothing about this movie stimulates the imagination enough to suspend any potential cynicism about the overall dated shoddiness of this movie.
Indeed, what was not a very good movie to begin with has not aged well since its release. But the bottom line is that Millennium tries to be a mystery, a romance, and sci-fi all at once, and fails at all three. The end result is a disaster in and of itself, unable to rise above the general incompetence in which the movie was made.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how Millennium was adapted from a novel. What would be the challenges in turning a novel into a movie?
What similarities and differences do you see between this and other science fiction movies?
Some science fiction movies rely heavily on expensive special effects to heighten the outlandish aspects to the movie, whereas others require that the audience focus more on the story and use their imagination. Where does this movie fall? Are high-quality special effects necessary for a science fiction movie?
Movie Details
- In theaters : August 25, 1989
- On DVD or streaming : April 20, 1999
- Cast : Kris Kristofferson , Cheryl Ladd , Daniel J. Travanti
- Director : Michael Anderson
- Inclusion Information : Female Movie Actor(s)
- Studio : Artisan Entertainment
- Genre : Science Fiction
- Topics : Adventures , Book Characters , Robots
- Run time : 108 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- Last updated : October 1, 2025
Did we miss something on diversity?
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by
Suggest an Update
Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.
See how we rate