It is sometimes said that men are from Mars and women from Venus, and "My Stepmother is an Alien" is a romantic comedy about two lovers who are, quite literally, from different planets. Dan Aykroyd plays Steve Mills, a scientist searching for extra-terrestrial life. Kim Basinger plays the extra-terrestrial life he succeeds in finding. The basic idea is that one of Mills's experiments results in a beam of light being sent to a distant planet where, by some unexplained freak of physics, it causes catastrophic damage to that planet's gravitational system. By an even odder freak, that damage can only be reversed by another beam of light, so the planet's rulers dispatch the beautiful Celeste to Earth to try and persuade Mills to repeat his experiment. Mills, a lonely widower with a teenage daughter, ends up falling in love with, and then marrying, Celeste, not realising that she is not of this earth. The only person who does realise- hence the title of the film- is Mills's daughter Jessie (played by Alyson Hannigan of "Buffy" fame in her first film appearance).
Celeste has supposedly been briefed about life on Earth before her mission, but although the inhabitants of her planet are supposedly very wise their information about Earth is either ludicrously out-of-date or ludicrously inaccurate, and most of the jokes in the film arise from Celeste's misunderstandings about earthlings and their ways. (For example, at a party she helps herself to an ashtray full of fag-ends in the belief that these are something to eat. Her own race appear to subsist on a staple diet of battery acid). During the course of her stay on earth, Celeste discovers a number of things that do not exist on her home planet- most notably sex (her people reproduce asexually), but also sandwiches, Shakespeare, sneezing and Jimmy Durante.
Scientists in comedies are often portrayed as batty, eccentric, absent-minded professors (e.g. Robin Williams's character in "Flubber"). Despite his background as a comedian, however, Aykroyd does not play Mills in this way. Indeed, he generally seems to be playing straight man to Basinger's funny woman. Celeste's wayward behaviour does not arouse Mills's suspicions; he is so besotted with her that, whatever she does, he explains away as a Dutch custom (Celeste has told him that she is from the Netherlands) or puts down to lovable eccentricity.
Kim Basinger can be a gifted comedienne, as she showed in films like "Blind Date" and "Nadine", but a comedienne is only as good as her material, and here much of the humour falls very flat, although there are some amusing scenes, such as the one where Celeste discovers what kissing is. (She is enlightened by her companion Bag, a talking, one-eyed snake-like creature who lives in her handbag, who shows her a series of film clips involving kissing, all of which she re-enacts with Mills).
As other reviewers have pointed out, the plot of "My Stepmother is an Alien" resembles that of "Splash" (which starred the Basinger lookalike Daryl Hannah), but it lacks the earlier film's charm. When it was recently shown on British television, it was advertised as a Sunday afternoon family movie, but much of the humour- especially the love-scene and the scenes involving Mills's disreputable, womanising brother Ron- seems too sexual in nature for most family audiences. On the other hand, the overall tone is too mild and sentimental for the film to work as a bawdy comedy. It is not an outstandingly bad film, but it is difficult to see exactly what the point of it is. 5/10
Celeste has supposedly been briefed about life on Earth before her mission, but although the inhabitants of her planet are supposedly very wise their information about Earth is either ludicrously out-of-date or ludicrously inaccurate, and most of the jokes in the film arise from Celeste's misunderstandings about earthlings and their ways. (For example, at a party she helps herself to an ashtray full of fag-ends in the belief that these are something to eat. Her own race appear to subsist on a staple diet of battery acid). During the course of her stay on earth, Celeste discovers a number of things that do not exist on her home planet- most notably sex (her people reproduce asexually), but also sandwiches, Shakespeare, sneezing and Jimmy Durante.
Scientists in comedies are often portrayed as batty, eccentric, absent-minded professors (e.g. Robin Williams's character in "Flubber"). Despite his background as a comedian, however, Aykroyd does not play Mills in this way. Indeed, he generally seems to be playing straight man to Basinger's funny woman. Celeste's wayward behaviour does not arouse Mills's suspicions; he is so besotted with her that, whatever she does, he explains away as a Dutch custom (Celeste has told him that she is from the Netherlands) or puts down to lovable eccentricity.
Kim Basinger can be a gifted comedienne, as she showed in films like "Blind Date" and "Nadine", but a comedienne is only as good as her material, and here much of the humour falls very flat, although there are some amusing scenes, such as the one where Celeste discovers what kissing is. (She is enlightened by her companion Bag, a talking, one-eyed snake-like creature who lives in her handbag, who shows her a series of film clips involving kissing, all of which she re-enacts with Mills).
As other reviewers have pointed out, the plot of "My Stepmother is an Alien" resembles that of "Splash" (which starred the Basinger lookalike Daryl Hannah), but it lacks the earlier film's charm. When it was recently shown on British television, it was advertised as a Sunday afternoon family movie, but much of the humour- especially the love-scene and the scenes involving Mills's disreputable, womanising brother Ron- seems too sexual in nature for most family audiences. On the other hand, the overall tone is too mild and sentimental for the film to work as a bawdy comedy. It is not an outstandingly bad film, but it is difficult to see exactly what the point of it is. 5/10