MY FAVORITE MARTIAN (1999)
Rating: 2.5 stars (out of 4.0) ******************************** Key to rating system: 2.0 stars - Debatable 2.5 stars - Some people may like it 3.0 stars - I liked it 3.5 stars - I am biased in favor of the movie 4.0 stars - I felt the movie's impact personally or it stood out ********************************* A Movie Review by David Sunga
Directed by: Donald Petrie
Written by: Sherri Stoner and Deanna Oliver
Starring: Jeff Daniels, Christopher Lloyd, Daryl Hannah, Elizabeth Hurley
Synopsis: MY FAVORITE MARTIAN is a special effects comedy based on the 1963 black and white TV sitcom of the same name starring Ray Walston and Bill Bixby.
A young Santa Barbara newsman named Tim stumbles upon a crashed Martian spaceship and befriends a wacky but kindhearted Martian as well as the Martian's sentient space suit. To help the friendly Martian remain undetected, Tim and the Martian pretend the Martian is Tim's "Uncle Martin." Funny situations arise out of cultural misunderstandings, attempts to remain inconspicuous in the community, and trying to outsmart alien-catching dark-suited agents from a menacing research organization called SETI.
Meanwhile Martin tries to help Tim's romance life. Tim fantasizes about glamour gal Brace (Elizabeth Hurley), but isn't plain coworker Lizzie (Daryl Hannah) closer to his heart?
Opinion: Truth is stranger than fiction. Blurry, high altitude shots of the Mars northern hemisphere's Cydonia region (taken by the 1976 Viking I Mars orbiting probe and published by the National Space Science Data Center) reveal what seem to be various triangular, square, and 5-sided pyramidal objects, along with straight lines among and between them. Most intriguing is a gigantic Washington Monument-type obelisk standing tall on the side of a huge crater and casting a long shadow. Since craters are large indentations caused by meteorites smashing into the ground, it's likely the monument was created after the crater formed; otherwise it would have been smashed to smithereens by the meteorite. If so, what natural process could have erected a tall, thin, pointy structure? It would take a six-month journey from Earth to Mars in order to reach the site and investigate.
As for the movie, fans of the 1960s TV series will recognize the theme song and welcome the familiar face of Ray Walston. There's not a whole lot of substance to MY FAVORITE MARTIAN, but plenty of energetic running around and MEN IN BLACK-style morphing into goofy alien creatures make it entertaining as a children's film. Parents, however, should be warned there are some instances of crude humor that aren't too appropriate for little kids such as the space suit growing breasts and a scientist hinting of sexual advances to a tied up lady.
Reviewed by David Sunga February 12, 1999
Copyright © 1999 by David Sunga This review and others like it can be found at THE CRITIC ZOO: http://www.criticzoo.com email: zookeeper@criticzoo.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews