My favorite Martian

My Favorite Martian

A movie by Donald Petrie

Reviewed by Renate

It seems that the nineties are turning into the decade of remakes. One should think that there are ample stories out there, which are worth turning into a feature length movie. Maybe the writers have run out of ideas. After "Leave it to Beaver," "Lost in Space," and "The Parent Trap," just to name a few, "My favorite Martian" entered the theaters. The sitcom of the sixties is now a movie of the nineties and has, besides a few minor details, not much left in common with the show I enjoyed watching as a child. Overall it's a nice movie for youngsters, adults are likely to leave the theater disappointed.

Christopher Lloyd stars as the Martian, who crash-landed on earth, and is fortunate enough to have a chewing gum that lets him change his outer appearance. Otherwise, he wouldn't last five minutes without detection. Lloyd plays the Martian like he played Doc Brown in "Back to the Future I, II, and III" wild and bug-eyed and in need of something to calm him down. His overacting is irritating at times, but does have its comic effect. When he fell apart -- literally -- I did chuckle.

Jeff Daniels portrays the mild-mannered news reporter Tim, who takes the stranded Martian into his home. Tim's job is to write and then speak the words into the ear (via microphone) of the girl in front of the camera too stupid to come up with her own comments (played by Elisabeth Hurley). I found that rather irritating. Darryl Hannah plays the girl who is in love with Tim, he of course has no clue, and comes to his and the Martian's rescue in the end.

The movie itself is full of jokes, some very subtle, which I like, and others so overdone, it's irritating. The opening scene is great; a little radio-controlled explorer car tours the planet Mars and runs out of power seconds before it would reveal a huge city on the surface, leaving the scientists on earth clueless to its existence. The talking spacesuit with its witty comments is too much and its function as the lifesaver for the experimented on, dying owner, is pathetic.

What little action the movie has is centered more or less around the pursuits to find the Martian and his attempts to get parts to repair his spaceship and return home. The car chase is programmed. The miniaturized car travelling down the sewer is interesting. The trip through the pipes ends in a toilet where someone is about to make use of it; that should have been deleted.

Needless to say, the end is predictable, everyone gets what she or he deserves and, as a bonus, a stranded Martian from 30 years ago gets to go home as well. We can only assume, they lived happily ever after.

If you do decide to go see it, look for Ray Walston. He played the Martian in the original show and has some of the best lines. "1964 never happened."

(The original show started in 1964 and in the movie one of the scientists remarks that the crash reminded him of the one from '64, which according to his supervisor, didn't happen. The supervisor turns out to be the other Martian.)

Please send any comments to Renate