Subject: Review: What Planet Are You From? (2000)

From: Eugene Novikov <[email-masked]>
Date: 5 Mar 2000 19:31:56 GMT

What Planet Are You From? (2000)
Reviewed by Eugene Novikov
http://www.ultimate-movie.com/
Member: Online Film Critics Society

Starring Garry Shandling, Annette Bening, John Goodman, Greg Kinnear,
Ben Kingsley, Linda Fiorentino. Directed by Mike Nichols. Rated R.

One of the most important rules of making a comedy is that you can't
have it both ways. You can either have a goofball, irreverent,
slapstick jamboree, in which case it has to be funny, but isn't
required to make a whole lot of sense. Or you can aim higher and make a
more ambitious movie, raunchy at director's discretion but also
insightful and intelligent. The latter, however, has one catch: it has
to have a thought-out plot. Mike Nichols's new movie What Planet Are
You From? is missing that last all-important component.

"Men are from Mars, Woman are from Venus" and Harold Anderson (Garry
Shandling) is from somewhere way the hell out there. Literally. He's an
alien from another planet and he has come to earth to procreate in
order to assist his homeworld's plans for universe domination. There
are a couple of problems. His planet consists of an all-male population
and he has no experience with human females. The catch phrases he
learned, such as "You smell good" and "I like your shoes" obviously
don't cut it. Also, he is missing the crucial equipment so it has to be
installed -- and whenever he is aroused, it hums. Yes, that's right --
it hums.

Harold takes a liking to Susan, a real estate agent/recovering
alcoholic (Annette Bening, playing a real estate agent for the second
time in a row). She is vulnerable at the time and she marries him on
the spot. Their relationship doesn't exactly take off because all the
groom cares about is that baby while the blushing bride worries that
she may be sterile. Meanwhile, a Federal Aviation Administration agent
(John Goodman) notices some strange things and gets on Harold's trail.

There are actually a lot of good things to say about What Planet Are
You From?. First and foremost is Annette Bening's performance which is
the best of the movie. In her last film, American Beauty, her gem of a
performance went somewhat underappreciated (even though, oddly enough,
it got an Oscar nomination) because it was upstaged by the acting
behemoth that is Kevin Spacey and the film's generally bizarre nature.
Here, she gets a chance to shine; there is a scene where she does an
uproarious song-and-dance rendition of "High Hopes" that won't soon
leave my memory.

Garry Shandling doesn't have the best comic timing around, but he is a
whiz of facial expressions and because of the nature of his
performance, he is often dead-on. The running gag, of course, is the
humming genitalia, which somehow manages not to turn this into a one
joke movie. It gets somewhat predictable, but never old.

The movie really is quite funny, and at times affecting, but as a whole
it doesn't hold up. It feels incomplete because while the film seems to
actually care about the characters and their emotionss, it doesn't have
an iota of concern for its plot. Nothing makes sense. The film doesn't
bother to explain anything about the aliens' background or what exactly
it is they are here for. The whole scenario remains irritatingly
ambiguous, preventing us from ever actually caring about what happens
on screen. The film's set-up fits a Saturday Night Live sketch better
than a full-length movie.

I have seen far worse comedies about aliens from outer space. What
Planet Are You From? at least manages to keep us from squirming in our
seats even if it never realizes its ambitions of involving our
emotions. Garry Shandling, in his first movie since completing his
Larry Sanders Show stint on HBO, looks promising for a lively big-
screen career. And Mike Nichols, who is revered for making comedies
with a compelling human side has made a movie that barely skims the
surface when it needed so desperately to dig a little deeper.

Grade: C+

©2000 Eugene Novikov

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