DVD
Upcoming Release Calendar
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Best / Worst of the Decade
Recent DVD/Video Releases
60
9
xx
Across the Hall
56
Adam
37
Amelia
73
Amreeka
35
Babysitters, The
70
Big Fan
57
Boys Are Back, The
81
Bright Star![]()
71
Bronson
60
Brothers at War
55
Brothers Bloom, The
45
Burning Plain, The
xx
Carriers
64
Che
57
Chelsea on the Rocks
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
23
Couples Retreat
54
Dare
68
Departures
19
Downloading Nancy
55
Endgame
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
27
Gamer
50
Give Me Your Hand
46
Halloween II
73
House of the Devil, The
94
Hurt Locker, The![]()
55
I Can Do Bad All By Myself
17
I Hate Valentine's Day
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
83
In the Loop![]()
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
41
Little Ashes
80
Lorna's Silence
33
Love Happens
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
xx
Ministers, The
67
Moon
59
More Than a Game
49
New York, I Love You
66
No Impact Man
47
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
28
Pandorum
68
Paranormal Activity
85
Passing Strange![]()
63
Perfect Getaway, A
44
Peter and Vandy
54
Pontypool
35
Post Grad
30
Saw VI
79
Serious Man, A
36
Serious Moonlight
76
Soul Power
40
Spiral
39
St. Trinian's
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
47
Time Traveler's Wife
43
Tru Loved
61
Trucker
47
Weather Girl
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
What Planet Are You From?
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Entertainment

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 32 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 6 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Sci-fi
Written by:
Garry Shandling (also story)
Michael Leeson (also story)
Ed Solomon
Peter Tolan
Directed by: Mike Nichols
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 3, 2000
DVD: July 18, 2000
Running Time: 104 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for sexuality and language
Starring Garry Shandling, Annette Bening, John Goodman, and Greg Kinnear
An alien (Shandling) is assigned to Earth to save his planet. To do this he must breed with a woman on Earth; however, as an alien his "plumbing" isn't quite the same.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Charlie Wilson's War Closer Postcards from the Edge Primary Colors Silkwood The Birdcage The Graduate Working Girl
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
This comedy is packed with p---- jokes, the cruder the better.
Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday
A bawdy, brainy sex comedy geared toward smart people with a sophomoric streak.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Phoebe Flowers
An unapologetically stupid and implausible movie, but in the best possible way -- it's so sure of itself, it wins you over.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
The trouble is that the film forsakes one sort of energy for another, and the downshift is a drag.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Nothing more than a sort of dumb, sort of clever fish out of water comedy.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Jay Carr
The film is almost as shaky as the science, but Nichols knows how to get the most out of what amounts to a one-joke comedy, and Bening works virtual miracles.
Read Full Review >Film.com Tom Keogh
Let your children have their childhood while you have a rare, grown-up experience at the multi-plex for a change.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris
In another universe - though it is difficult to imagine which one - Garry Shandling might be sexy.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The film's asset, in a walk, is Bening, whose comic timing puts Shandling to shame.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Marc Caro
Shandling and Nichols strain to reach a mainstream audience and wind up sounding like they, too, have been trained to tell us what we want to hear. Sorry, guys, but you don't score.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
Garry Shandling is poignant and hilarious as an alien stud.
Read Full Review >TNT RoughCut Graham Verdon
With Gary Shandling appearing in just about every scene, only fans of his trademark whiny, disinterested delivery and sexist un-political correctness have a hope of enjoying his new film.
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Goodman's comic delivery gets maximum mileage from a few amusing situations, though.
Read Full Review >USA Today Susan Wloszczyna
Nichols usually can lure A-list casts to even C-grade projects, and this is no exception.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham
It's good for a few guffaws and chuckles, but in between the screen has a tendency to stretch at the corners and go flat.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
Good for a few lascivious titters but quite lacking in the sort of comic bite and social satire one hopes for in the work of Mike Nichols.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Dennis Lim
There's a certain satisfaction in recognizing that Harold -- even when he inevitably starts to feel, just like a human -- remains something of an a--hole.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Steve Simels
Unfortunately the whole thing is less than the sum of its parts, despite a frequently droll script and a great performance from Shandling.
Read Full Review >Mr. Showbiz Richard T. Jameson
This one somehow gets about 300 percent better in its last quarter-hour -- suddenly this is a movie worth watching -- and it's over.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Has its sinfully funny moments. Funny, that is, if you appreciate a certain cynical clamminess -- or Buck Henry seediness -- to your comedy.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
The buildup to social criticism in what at first appears to be pointless and partly misogynist exploitation is subtly impressive.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
Adequately breezy and sleazy -- a movie about the horniest man in the universe looking for a little one-night stand.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Here is the most uncomfortable movie of the new year, an exercise in feel-good smut.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Bening's prickliness is pure delight, but there's only so much she can do. It's a terrible fate for an actress to be upstaged by a humming p----.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Manohla Dargis
Shandling comes off as a sleazebag -- all that's missing are the gold chains, tufted chest hair and English Leather.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Sporadically funny, often strange and almost never poignant.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Quite possibly, this could have been a hit back in 1975 or so, and almost certainly for Blake Edwards, but here and now it's just a puzzling aberration.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
The combination of Shandling's button-down TV sensibility and Nichols's good taste produces a film whose tone is out of sync with the simple, ribald conceit and is only mildly amusing at best.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
Wants to be sweet and dark at the same time, but it is as distant as a planet's satellite.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 6 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Andre D. gave it a10:
One of the funniest movies I have ever seen. Makes a brilliant play on man's insecurities as viewed from an alien.
David B. gave it a9:
I'm a tough critic. And this movie, though a colossal bomb, is both extremely intelligent and funny as hell. Some of the comedy is broad and physical, but most of it is actually dry and sophisticated. Maybe that's what threw the reviewers. And the American public. It shouldn't have. But then, some people don't think Albert Brooks (the early movies) are funny.
JIMJIM gave it an8:
Funny but Strange.
[Anonymous] gave it a10:
I think the critics were just too hard. Loosen up. It was hilarious. That's all there is to it.
