“Enemy Mine” may have some issues but it is done is in the same vein as the original “Star Wars” movies and another film by director Wolfgang Petersen “The NeverEnding Story”. It’s amusing and a fun film to look at.

A soldier from Earth named Willis Davidge (Dennis Quaid “The Day After Tomorrow”, “The Parent Trap”) crash-lands on an alien world and finds a surviving alien from the Drac race Earth was fighting. The Drac called ‘Jerry’ by the earthling and played by an unrecognisable Louis Gossett Jr. (“The Punisher”, “Jaws 3”) and Davidge try to learn one another’s language and fighting the elements.

Dennis Quaid is reasonable as Willis Davidge. Louis Gossett Jr. is good the Drac. The two have some amusing conversations and arguments (the one involving Mickey Mouse is simply fantastic). The only thing that is it bit silly is that because this is a movie and they didn’t subtitle anything the Drac seems to talk more English than Davidge talks Drac. The other characters are really disappointing and let the film down big time. He creatures on the planets look just like something from “Star Wars” or “The NeverEnding Story” and it’s that kind of special effects I deem the most creative and the best.

“Enemy Mine” is really good in the first 30-35 minutes as we see a good space battle and the first encounters of the two species, it declines slightly for the next 25-30 as they try to go a bit deeper into the characters without especially succeeding, it’s still entertaining but goes massively downhill in the last third as we see some really goofy moments that bring the film down a lot. Another huge issue that hurts the film is that there is an awful lot of bad language for a film obviously intended for a younger demographic. If you’re a big fan of “Star Wars” and/or “The NeverEnding Story” then you won’t enjoy this one anywhere near as much as those films but you’ll have some fun (for the first hour at least). It’s surprisingly good to start with and surprisingly disappointing for the finale.