What Planet Are You From

What Planet Are You From?

Grade: D

Verdict: Did Mike Nichols really direct this dog of a comedy?

Details: Starring Garry Shandling and Annette Bening. Directed by Mike Nichols. Rated R for profanity, sexual jokes and innuendo. 1 hour, 40 minutes.

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Review: I really don't care about the identity of the planet. I'd just like to know the identity of the alien being that is passing itself off as director Mike Nichols.

How else to explain the claim that a top-shelf director like Nichols actually helmed the galactic-sized disaster "What Planet Are You From?"

Oh, Nichols' name is in the credits. Also listed are such talents as Garry Shandling, Annette Bening, Ben Kingsley, Greg Kinnear and John Goodman. Only Bening and Kinnear, if that's who they really are, acquit themselves fairly well. The rest are going through the motions on the way to the pay window — or their spaceship.

Co-written by the deadpan Shandling, this comedy is crude, silly, trite and very unfunny. The plot and nearly every joke revolve around sex. To call most of these gags sophomoric is to give them an undeserved promotion.

Shandling is an alien from a sexless, emotionless planet. He is sent to Earth to marry and impregnate someone as quickly as possible. The aim is to dominate our planet, although how that's to be accomplished isn't clear.

But, then, it doesn't matter. The joke is that Shandling, despite being briefed on the ways of courtship and female Earthlings, usually gets things all wrong. His pickup lines are lame, and his transplanted sexual organ whistles like a real musical instrument. That is the film's running "joke."

He looks normal in a suit, though. He passes himself off as a Phoenix banker and is mentored in the dating game by a duplicitous Lothario (Kinnear). Eventually, he meets Bening and — well, you could write the ups and down of the rest of the screenplay yourself.

Shandling can be a stitch, as anyone who has watched his former HBO series knows. But his wincing demeanor and deadpan humor don't translate to the big screen.

Bening brings some real emotion to her role as Shandling's unknowing wife. Kinnear once again plays a boyish, airheaded, ne'er-do-well, but he does it so well.

As for Nichols, or whoever he is: Well, let's just say the director actually resorted to filming dancing fountains during a lovemaking scene. In fact, the only eruption this movie evokes is a loud yawn.

— Gary Schwan, Cox News Service

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