What Planet Are You From?

[2000, Movie]

What Planet Are You From?: Review

Remember all those cheesy '50s sci-fi flicks about aliens who yearn to sleep with our Earth women? Apparently, Gary Shandling does; his first big project since the lamented Larry Sanders Show is a comic update of I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE, reworked as a satiric parable about the modern-day battle of the sexes. Stardate 2999: Four solar systems and three generations from Earth lies a highly evolved world of men lacking penises and, consequently, the urge to conquer the universe. So their fearless leader (Ben Kingsley) equips one of his best and brightest, Harold (Shandling), with an artificial organ (it hums when stimulated) and dispatches him to Earth to impregnate an unwitting female, though why this is supposed to facilitate universal conquest is a bit unclear. Once in Phoenix, Harold encounters sleazeball Perry (Greg Kinnear), who hangs out at AA meetings to meet babes; Perry's sexually omnivorous wife (Linda Fiorentino, typecast, but who cares?) and Susan (Annette Benning), a recovering alcoholic and part-time New Ager who winds up the woman in Harold's life. It should come as no surprise that Harold eventually discovers true love and his own essential humanity — that sort of thing happens all the time on Star Trek. Unfortunately the whole thing is less than the sum of its parts, despite a frequently droll script and a great performance from Shandling, whose comic timing recalls Jack Benny at his best. You walk out remembering the humming noise in Harold's pants and not much else. That said, there's a world-class flying condom gag, and sharp-eyed sci-fi buffs will get a kick out of a cityscape on Harold's planet that's lifted directly from a design in the restored version of Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS. --Steve Simels