Overall Rating Awesome: 3.92% Worth A Look: 7.84% Average: 35.29% Pretty Bad: 15.69% Total Crap: 37.25% 5 reviews, 21 user ratings

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What Planet Are You From?

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by Erik Childress

"Opportunity For Rich Satire Wasted"

What Planet Are You From? (**) – The premise of this film is enough to draw a smile. Garry Shandling as an alien from a planet of all men sent to ours to impregnate an Earth woman. The possibilities are endless. Unfortunately what sounds like a cheap B-movie plot on late night Cinemax actually plays like nothing more than a cheap flick on Cinemax with A-list actors.

In a story begging for rich satire, all we really get is the mind-blowing revelation that men want sex and women want to talk. Great – the mystery of the ages is solved. I would have even settled for a cheap sex comedy instead of a film that falls somewhere in-between – not quite deep and not quite cheap. The film never digs deep enough into the ongoing battle of the sexes, never even mentioning what should have been an obvious comic stab – and that’s into the relationship advice books, most notably “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus”. The running gag is the alien’s humming penis which gets some good laughs early on and then is reduced to a mere crutch, trying to get a laugh when the film has nothing else to offer. I did like the first 20-30 minutes here, if for nothing than to hear the way Shandling tries to pick up women, but even that dies out after he meets his mate-to-be. The one bright spot of the film comes from Annette Bening who creates the only thing resembling a real character, warm and sad, and waiting to be loved. And it’s not that any of the other actors are bad, it’s just that they’re given absolute zero to work with. Greg Kinnear makes the most of his philandering husband. Linda Fiorentino is wasted in the role of his cheating wife where her sole highlight is wearing a revealing outfit in her first entrance. There is not a single interesting scene with the John Goodman airline/alien investigator. It provides an unnecessary subplot to a film that doesn’t have much of a plot to begin with.

Any single episode of The Larry Sanders Show or even 3rd Rock From the Sun produces more big laughs and more laughs period than the entire running time of this film. By the time we get to what seems to be the film’s summation in the form of wedding vows, you have to ask yourself - did we really have to sit through this film to hear something that’s so obvious to anyone who has ever been in a relationshop before? The title question this film should be asking is – What were they trying to say?

link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=1974&reviewer=198
originally posted: 03/02/00 06:06:09

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User Comments

1/31/09 sweet sakura lack of pragmatic is a good idea but too many sekz makes it boring 3 stars

9/18/08 PAUL SHORTT A DIRTY-MIDDLE AGED MAN'S COMEDY 1 stars

7/27/05 Indrid Cold Cool idea and cast, but it's just really unfunny. 3 stars

10/29/03 Charles Tatum Astronomically average 3 stars

10/02/03 Zaharin Hamid aka The Movie Samseng One of the funniest movies I've ever seen. Gary is such a laugh. 5 stars

4/08/03 Jack Sommersby Tolerable nonsense. 3 stars

1/24/02 Dan Hogan Bening was excellent, movie had a few laughs, wnet downhill from there. 2 stars

1/02/02 Andrew Carden This Movie Is From Plant Bore-Tron. 1 stars

11/19/00 fuck fuck 1 stars

8/07/00 Blorg The Magnificent The premise: men are jerks, women are whiny. No imagination here. Blech. 2 stars

7/25/00 Monday Morning Starts well but morphs into a so-so story. It's the writing. 3 stars

7/24/00 The Bomb 69 I thought it was funny!! 4 stars

4/27/00 Pansy unfunny and lame 1 stars

4/09/00 EMagGaRony most of it was funny as anything but kind of slow at times, worth seein for a laugh 4 stars

4/04/00 Mr. Kramitall waste of film 1 stars

3/30/00 Stunner I laughed from beginning to end. Garry Shandling is funny. 4 stars

3/18/00 Captain Highcrime I knew a black guy who's penis whistled too. So what? 3 stars

3/17/00 Lame-Oh Sissy movie! Laughably godawful flick which is intended for retards who think it's funny. 1 stars

3/10/00 Dirty Dave Capone Had to leave after 45 minutes, horribly stupid movie aimed at morons who enjoy childlike co 1 stars

2/27/00 "Persnickety "Jenn this movie is damn funny, full of humor that doesn't stop 5 stars

6/08/99 Fred Flitsyone hat waz a goode quewstoen ie undeestnnde whrre imm fron 4 stars

IF YOU'VE SEEN THIS FILM, RATE IT!
Note: Duplicate, 'planted,' or other obviously improper comments
will be deleted at our discretion. So don't bother posting 'em. Thanks!

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USA 03-Mar-2000 (R) DVD: 18-Jul-2000 UK N/A Australia 28-Sep-2000 (M)

Directed by Mike Nichols Written by Michael Leeson Cast Gary Shandling Annette Bening John Goodman Greg Kinnear Ben Kingsley Linda Fiorentino

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