Down to Earth (2001) 1 1/2 stars out of 4. Starring Chris Rock, Regina King, Mark Addy, Eugene Levy, Chazz Palminteri, Frankie Faison, Greg Germann and Jennifer Coolidge. Screenplay by Chris Rock, & Lance Crouther & Ali Le Roi & Louis CK. Based on the film "Heaven Can Wait," screenplay by Elaine May and Warren Beatty from a play by Harry Segall. Directed by Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz. PG-13.
Third timeís a charm, the adage goes, but exceptions are possible.
Take Down to Earth, for example. It is the third version of Here Comes Mr. Jordan, originally produced in 1941 and remade by Warren Beatty in 1978 as Heaven Can Wait.
The story is simple: A young man is accidentally taken before his time. The young man and his guardian angels then spend the rest of the film seeking the right body in which to return him to the land of the living.
Along the way he, of course, falls in love, and at the fade-out everything has worked out as divinely planned.
Here Comes Mr. Jordan actually won two Academy Awards, one for original story, the second for original screenplay.
Heaven Can Wait, received 10 nominations, but won in only two minor categories ó art direction and set decoration.
And that brings us to Down to Earth. Before a reel of film unspools you know problems will abound. Why? Because the story is credited to four screenwriters: star Chris Rock, Lance Crouther, Ali Le Roi and Louis CK.
It should not take four screenwriters to hash out a plot based on a screenplay co-written by the legendary Elaine May and Warren Beatty.
Down to Earth has a disjointed feel to it as if bits from each of the writers were blended into a cinema stew without any thought of cohesiveness. It jumps around from scene to scene without any rhyme or reason. It feels as if were taped together instead of edited.
A few laughs and a couple of chuckles rear their heads, but nothing sustains them.
The major problem is Rock. He is a fine comedian, but an inept actor. His delivery of lines sounds like a constant standup routine. Every sentence is shouted like its a punchline to some joke. Rock needs to learn how to modulate his voice and phrase dialogue.
Some of the humor works, especially Rockís diatribe about hospitals and his put-down of a heckler at a comedy club. But most of the jokes are not that funny.
In this version of the story Rock plays Lance Barton, a failed standup comedian, instead of an athlete as in the plotís previous incarnations.
Heaven, as shown here, is a chintzy nightclub that would even make Vegas blush. God, if we are to believe Down to Earth, has neither a sense of taste nor style.
Lance is sent back to earth and inhabits the body of a white, 53-year-old ruthless business tycoon, but even the comic possibilities associated with this point are not utilized to their full potential.
What we get are shots of a balding, chubby white guy trying to sing and move to the beat of rap music. Hilarious, not!
Down to Earth is deficient is plot and in substance. The weight of the picture falls on Rockís shoulders and while he strenuously tries to hold it up, he ultimately fails. Unfortunately, as a co-writer and an executive producer, he must shoulder some of the blame.
Rock has potential to be a fine comic actor. His work in Nurse Betty and Dogma attest to that. It just may be he still lacks the stamina to pull his own movie.
Nice try, Chris, but we are certain you can do better.
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, IN. He can be reached by e-mail at bloom@journal-courier.com or at bobbloom@iquest.net. Other reviews by Bloom can be found at www.jconline.com by clicking on golafaytte. Bloom's reviews also can be found on the Web at the Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Bob+Bloom
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