'Martian' Lands With a Thud By Desson Howe Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, February 12, 1999

Jeff Daniels, left, and Christopher Lloyd are zapped by overblown special effects. (Available Light Ltd.) Director: Donald Petrie Cast: Jeff Daniels; Christopher Lloyd; Elizabeth Hurley; Daryl Hannah; Ray Walston Running Time: 1 hour, 28 minutes Contains bathroom humor, sexual implications and earthling-alien kissing

The film, in which earthling Jeff Daniels plays host to visiting Martian Christopher Lloyd and his talkative, gyrating bodysuit, completely subsumes the traditional spirit of the original 1960s TV series and such old-time Disney fare as "The Gnome-Mobile" into a tacky, anything-goes broadness for the apparently jaded kids in the audience. Although Ray Walston, the original star of the TV show, gets a minor role, there is nothing of the show's quaint appeal. Instead, we are assaulted with a bevy of computer graphic imaging, animatronics and puppetry, together with out-of-left-field sexually suggestive jokes (presumably intended for the bored baby boomer chaperones) and the aforementioned toilet yuks.

Daniels is Tim O'Hara, a struggling TV news producer with an inexplicable crush on nasty Brace Channing (Elizabeth Hurley), a social-climbing, on-air bimbo whose daddy runs the channel. If Tim would only look inside his heart – to paraphrase the movie's clumsy theme – he would see that Lizzie (Daryl Hannah), the sweet-natured cameraperson on those field shoots, is the one for him.

Coming back from a news shoot, Tim and Brace run into a crash-landed Martian spacecraft that immediately reduces itself to melon size to avoid capture. The Martian pilot morphs into the human form we know as Christopher Lloyd and the story gets going.

The alien forces himself into Tim's home, resisting Tim's efforts to turn him into the news story of the century. He dubs himself Tim's Uncle Martin as a cover story for the shadowy feds (led by Wallace Shawn) and curious neighbors, while he roots around for a molecular compressor (or something) to repair his spacecraft.

We also meet Zoot, Uncle Martin's Polymorphic Zootinix 3000 spacesuit, which comes to life, is lascivious toward female garments, loves to spend spinning time in the washing machine, and seems to think it is Robin Williams from "Aladdin." It isn't.

After 90 minutes of special effects and crudities, when Tim and Uncle Martin are professing their love for each other (and clearly setting things up for a sequel), you're left at a loss. These guys were so busy reacting to weird morphing tricks and risque gags, when did they find time to start liking each other? A scintilla of improvement in story and joke writing – say about $100,000 more in the budget – could have boosted this low-performance vessel into higher, character-driven orbit. But instead, we are presented with pyrotechnics and the entertainment equivalent of a black hole.