June 16: My Favorite Martian

"A martian lands on Earth and makes friends with a reporter."

I swear that all these alien movies are going to buildup to Prometheus sooner than later. Certain circumstances continue to prevent me from seeing the movie (one I really want to see), so I vowed to continue watching alien movies until then. As I have now gone 15 days watching extra-terrestrial, I have kind of run out of ideas and sadly have settled on Disney's 1999 remake of the 1960s TV show, My Favorite Martian. Of course it is a movie I watched plenty of times as a kid and did enjoy it, but like most things, I certainly have grown out of it. My Favorite Martian is ridiculous and childish (but having an incredibly large amount of sex jokes and innuendos) and is only made watchable by the amazing Christopher Lloyd who turns a stupid premise and character into something mildly entertaining. His voice and facial features are incredible and he makes me desperately want to have a Back to the Future marathon (yes, I may do that sometime soon). 

Great Scott! 

The plot of this Disney dud follows Tim O'Hara (Jeff Daniels), a down on his luck news reporter who can't seem to be taken seriously as a journalist. After his one chance at proving to his boss he can be somebody fails miserably, Tim drives home in frustration, wondering what the hell he can do next. On his way back to his house (to most likely drink himself into a dark depression), an alien spaceship crash lands on the side of the road Tim is driving on. On board is a martian (Lloyd) who sneaks into Tim's car and rides home with him. After discovering the martian, Tim plans on exploiting it for the news story of the century, thus giving him true credibility as a reporter. However, Tim bonds with the martian, who he names Martin and passes him off as his uncle, and when a bunch of government agents come knocking on his door wanting the alien for studies, Tim does whatever he can to protect him. 

Whereas, some reporters steal the souls of our alien visitors, keeping them hostage inside their mustachioed bodies

I don't believe My Favorite Martian set itself out to be anything amazing. Whenever a kids movie rolls into town, you can only assume it's made for the money and not for the awards and this movie is no exception. Surprisingly, it has some pretty decent special effects for being what it is but it leaves you wondering if that's where all the script and production costs went to die. Like I said, Christopher Lloyd is the only good thing of the movie and I have and continually will watch him in almost anything. Thus, I would recommend My Favorite Martian only for him and also has a somewhat decent film to have on in the background when you're surfing the internet, reading alien conspiracy theories and X-Files fan-fiction. 

The Good:

Christopher Lloyd being too awesome for his own good

The Bad:

a horribly laughable script that tries (?) to be something worthwhile

The Ugly:

leaving me wondering what other kind of crap I watched as a kid

Overall: 4.0/10

Trailer: