Enemy Mine

This is a film I grew up with.  For the most part I think anyone who had cable or satellite in the 1990's also remembers this movie pretty fondly.  It is the strange tale of Humans vs Drac.  Willis Davidge (played by Dennis Quaid) and Jeriba Shigan (Louis Gossett Jr.) or Jerry as they often call him, are rivals in space combat. They damage their ships and are both marooned on an alien planet together.  You see in the future these two races do not get along and wage a violent war in space.  This is a weird thing for Wolfgang Petersen to have directed just four years after Das Boot.

Anyway, in order to survive this alien land Willis and Jerry must work together.  This proves difficult as both species hate each other and neither can speak the others language.  Eventually they find a strange kinship in each other however and learn to speak to one another.  Survival makes them friends and the enemies they once were fade away.

Things get a bit complicated when it is discovered that Jerry is pregnant and will die when the child is born.  Willis must come to terms with his new friend's death, and raise the Drac child without Jerry's help.  This is a pretty serious subject for what amounts to a weird Sci-Fi movie.  The early portion of the film deals with racism, albeit in the most over the top fashion imaginable.  Then the latter part of the film deals with Willis becoming the parent of a child that is not his.  To make matters a bit more complicated, Willis discovers the presence of other humans and decides not to meet them for the safety of Jerry, and later Jerry's child.  But perhaps the most challenging thing for Willis is teaching the child to play football without any other team members.

I have seen this movie quite a few times, because it just happened to be on, sort of like most people's relationship with the Beastmaster films.  My parents had a VHS of it as well and friends would occasionally want to watch it if I mentioned it.  This led me to being way too familiar with the movie, to the point where I had a decent amount of it memorized.  I admit I have only seen it a few times since I became older than twenty and most of the time because other people wanted to see it.  I once made my wife watch it and she rather enjoyed it.

That's the thing with this movie, for the most part everyone enjoys it.  Not many people love it or think it is their favorite movie however.  I can understand this.  Overall it is very good at getting its story to you in a speedy manner, and the effects are usually pretty decent.  I like practical effects so I would even prefer bad practicals over great CGI.  That is just a personal opinion though.  There isn't really anything wrong with CGI unless it is too in your face.  I think that is what makes this movie work.  It really isn't all that in your face.  The racial tones are pretty in your face, but it manages to make the characters so much more interesting.  I like this film, but love it would be a strong word.  This is one of those movies that you put in when you've been sitting around for an hour with nothing to do and it happens to be on a shelf somewhere.  Enemy Mine is a good movie, with good acting that is for sure.  It is not where I go for a Sci-Fi fix on a normal day however.  That honor will always go to Flash Gordon.