To describe "My Favorite Martian" as formulaic is like saying "Citizen Kane" is a "pretty good little flick."
This dumbbell comedy, a radical re-interpretation of the 1960s television series, simply rehashes the script of "Flubber," with even more mixed results.
"My Favorite Martian" is also extremely derivative of other science-fiction hits, including "Men in Black," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"and "E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial." But it seriously lacks the charm of any of them.
What's worse, it's just not funny, and it ends with a flurry of violence and gags that are in questionable taste.
Still, it's not quite as vulgar as the ads make it appear — though there are several inappropriate gags for youngsters, including a nauseating "Fantastic Voyage"-style trip through a sewer.
The title character is a shape-changing, interplanetary traveler (Christopher Lloyd) who has been sent to find a long-missing scientist from his planet. But he crash-lands and finds himself stranded among these "primitives."
So, he turns to one of them for help, Tim O'Hara (Jeff Daniels), a failed television news producer who sees his otherworldly houseguest as Pulitzer Prize material. Tim agrees to help the visitor find parts to repair his spaceship, and the alien adopts the guise of Tim's eccentric Uncle Martin.
Subplots include a determined scientist (Wallace Shawn) discovering the impact crater left by Martin's ship — and tracking down the alien — and a slip-up by Martin that creates a peculiar love triangle between Tim and two of his co-workers (Daryl Hannah and Elizabeth Hurley).
That the film is entirely predictable shouldn't be too surprising, considering that it comes from the director of "Richie Rich" (Donald Petrie) and the scripters of "Casper" (Sherri Stoner and Deana Oliver). But no one could have anticipated how juvenile and leaden the humor is.
For example, the one gag that should work — Martin's wisecracking spacesuit, Zoot, which has a mind of its own — becomes fairly tiresome.
Even the performers don't seem inspired. Lloyd mugs shamelessly to compensate for the material's shortcomings, while both Daniels and Hannah seem to be going through the motions.
"My Favorite Martian" is rated PG for slapstick violence, as well as some fisticuffs and a terrifying alien attack, flatulence gags and a couple of other vulgar sight gags, brief male nudity and female cleavage, and some mild profanity.