My Favorite Martian Reviews

Based on a goofy '60s TV series and aimed squarely at vulgar 10-year-olds (and inner vulgar 10 year olds), this sappy comedy is relatively harmless and occasionally serves up a funny bit. Sweet-natured bumbler Tim O'Hara (Jeff Daniels) works as a producer for a local California TV station; he's hopelessly in love with spoiled and none-too-bright on-air personality Brace Channing (Elizabeth Hurley), and blind to the fact that his pal Lizzie (Daryl Hannah) nurses a secret crush on him. Things take a turn for the wacky when Tim witnesses the crash landing of an alien space craft, whose pilot assumes human form, hitches a ride home with Tim and persuades the astonished Earthling to pass him off as his eccentric Uncle Martin (Christopher Lloyd). Martin and his space suit, which has a manic life of its own and answers to the name of Zoot, try to repair their damaged ship while getting into all kinds of silly scrapes and dragging Tim along for the ride. Complicating matters are fanatical UFO-hunter Dr. Edward Coleye (Wallace Shawn) and his mysterious boss (Ray Walston, the original TV series' Uncle Martin), who know there's an alien around somewhere and won't stop until they find it. In keeping with trend toward ever greater coarseness in children's comedies, toilet jokes (Dr. E. Coli, get it -- tee hee!), whacked in the 'nads jokes, boob jokes and the ever-popular fart jokes abound. Christopher Lloyd does his rubber-faced weirdo shtick and the ever-game Daniels is just along for the ride, but the movie's salvation is Hurley, who shows that her comic turn in AUSTIN POWERS was no fluke. She can play a prissy bitch like nobody's business, but she's also not afraid to look like a damned fool.