More than one exalted reviewer has panned Mike Nichols' 2000 fantasy by giving it zero stars! Could they have missed the point of comic Garry Shandling's hilarious debut role as well as four other outstanding performances with countless perfectly timed one-liners?
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A refreshing treatment of an old idea, the film shows alien Shandling earning a mission to impregnate an Earth female as his all-male planet is losing its ability to clone. Their leader, Graydon (Kingsley) uses holograms to prepare his expressionless “Stepford Men” to flatter Earth women and to appease them by repeatedly murmuring, “uh-huh.”
"Intensively trained,” Garry arrives in Phoenix as banker Harold Anderson. Totally unprepared for human conflict, his well-rehearsed pickup lines repeatedly flop, “can I have your autograph; you're Miss America, aren't you.”
Competing with viperous co-worker Perry (Kinnear) for women and a VP opening, Harold accompanies him to an AA meeting where “sobbing women are easy prey.” He meets Susan (Bening) a realtor, to whom he immediately declares that he was, “put here to have a child.” Perceiving this admission as rare male honesty and sensitivity, Susan accepts Harold's marriage proposal. While the couple tries vigorously to conceive, Susan realizes too late that Harold lacks human emotion and screams, “what planet are YOU from?”
But Harold's response to their newborn convinces him that conflict and emotion and good things. As the enlightened couple renew their wedding vows to a reggae version of “High Hopes,” it becomes clear to the guests from both planets that, “the (entire) universe is indeed one screwed-up place”
The review of this Movie prepared by Angry Jim Magin
