One of those films that accelerates to a smashing last 30 minutes after a slow-burning previous 90, director Petersen's early crack at sci-fi splices heartfelt emotion into a story of an earthman and a hermaphrodite rept-alien stranded together on a hostile planet.

An erratically paced but refreshingly adult outer-space combination of Hell in the Pacific and Robinson Crusoe, it's beautifully designed and remains very much its own film.

Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett Jr give everything that could be asked of them, Gossett doing well to elicit sympathy rather than risibility for his scaly spacething. But it's a film that failed to find its niche with the public.