What Planet Are You From Review by Tim Wick

Without question, we are in the middle of the worst movie season of the year. Happens every year around this time. There are four "movie seasons" as I see it. You have the Summer Blockbuster season that runs from Mid May to the end of August, The Christmas blockbuster season running from Thanksgiving through new years, the "Oscar" season (January if you live in Minnesota) and the 'dumping ground' seasons (February - May and September - November). I call them the 'dumping ground' because they are the seasons the studios don't expect to make a lot of money in. The kids are in school. None of the movies have been nominated for awards yet. So you get a bunch of mediocre movies the studios use to get butts into the seats. They figure that something will light on with the rabid movie buffs (like me) and they can turn a profit. Last year, The Matrix got released in April because the studio had no confidence in it. They were surprised. So when you watch films in the 'dumping grounds,' you are looking for the gem that the studio didn't recognize. Given how idiotic most studio execs are, you would think that would be pretty simple.

But it's not. Plain and simple, for every terrific movie that comes out, there are five or six What Planet are you Froms. The movie is not actually BAD, but it isn't good either.

I have a hard time coming up with a good review for this movie. I must admit that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be (I reserve that statement for Mission to Mars which I will fire a barb at whenever I can). The problem is that it's a comedy I didn't find all that funny. For one thing, it relied on a single joke to get most of it's point across and I didn't think that joke was funny. That kind of ruins the film.

Gary Shandling plays an alien who is sent to Earth to get a human pregnant in order to help his species take over the world. In the process of living among humans, he becomes more like them and begins to appreciate their strengths and failings. It's kind of like watching Starman as a sex comedy. Problem is, as I have already said, it's not funny.

I was a bit let down because of the potential of the cast. Annette Benning plays the woman Shandling marries and she is as good as you would expect her to be given the script pretty much forces her to play the straight woman. Greg Kinnear plays a scuzball banker who works with Shandling and John Goodman plays an FAA investigator who is figuring out Shandling's little secret (seems the only way Shandling's race can get to Earth is through an airplane lavatory - ha ha). All these actors do a good job - even managing to squeeze a laugh out every now and again.

But overall the movie is a blah film. The central joke (that Shandling's "member" hums when he gets excited) is overused and really not at all funny. I didn't hate it, but I can't honestly recommend it. You go to comedies to laugh. You won't do much of it at this one.

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What Planet Are You From?

Two out of Five Beakers