"Enemy Mine" is a childhood favorite of mine and I try to regularly watch it again because it's one of the films that sparked my interest in Sci-Fi, horror and cult cinema. Of course, back when I was a kid the allegory on friendship and interstellar discrimination was completely lost on me and I simply stared at the screen because Louis Gossett Jr.'s make up looked so incredibly damn cool and because this was the film that featured the awesomely cool monster which emerged its eerie tentacle from the soil and dragged the victims underneath. I swear that monster deserves its very own horror spin-off and should be as popular as "Tremors". Nearly twenty years further on and through the eyes of an adult viewer, I'm somewhat reluctant to admit that these exact same elements are still the main trumps of "Enemy Mine". The typical "buddy" aspect of the screenplay is rather cheesy and mundane, and in practically every scene it is the bleak and depressing planet scenery that steals the show. During one of the many ongoing battles between humans and the Dracs, with the purpose of colonizing the galaxy, human fighter pilot Davigde and Drac warrior Jeriba crash-land their spaceships on the abandoned and uninhabitable planet Fyrine IV. The planet regularly suffers from meteor storms and homes some incredibly vicious monsters, so the competitive and patriotic men realize they need to put their differences aside and rely on each other for survival. The ordeal becomes even more significant when Davidge learns a thing or two about the Drac's method of reproduction and when they run into sleazy human mine explorers. The acting performances of both Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett Jr. are stupendous, but the situations and dialogs are too grotesque in order to evoke any real sentiments of compassion, sadness or sympathy. It may sound shallow, but the highlights of the film are undoubtedly the action sequences. Thank God the adrenalin-rushing finale, with B-movie regular Brion James as the sleazy Drac-hater Stubbs. "Enemy Mine" was the first US film of Wolfgang Petersen, whose "Never Ending Story" was another childhood favorite of mine. After this he only did mainstream productions.
Review of Enemy Mine
