Rating: 
Summary: A complete waste
Review: The film "What planet are you from?" disappointed me in many levels. I was expecting a funny and smart comedy --am I asking too much?--, but what I got instead was a very boring and meaningless flick. And what's more, a waste of talents! The plot follows an alien who lands on earth in order to get a woman preganant and improve his specie. It could have deliverd many laughs, but it made me feel very embarassed most of the time. The only person who seems to try to give a nice perfornance -- and she does so, despite the limitations of the senseless script -- is Annette Bening. She is beautiful and radiante in this movie, but it is not enough to save the silly screenplay and the misguided direction. The leading man, Garry Shandlin, is nothing but awful. He does not cast as the alien. Maybe he played this role because he is one of the producers and one of the four (!) writers who wrote ths screenplay. He's got the most embassing moments in this so called comedy, due to the fact his character has a 'mechanic' penis which makes a strange noise everytime he gets 'hot'. This is supposed to be funny! The other actors play the same kind of character that they are very used to. Linda Fiorentino is sexy, Greg Kinnear is seducer, John Goodman is the intelligent one, Ben Kingsley is the strange . The script is a mess itself. It is the kind of thing that usually happens when a movie is rewritten many times by different script writers before shooting. So having four people working on it didn't help at all. And instead of that kind of fish-out-of-the-water jokes we have an alien who is very used to living on earth despite the fact that he had never been here before. For instance, when he arrives, he's already got a job and even some recommendation letters. Plus, everytime he needs to talk to his master from the other planet, he seems to go to an airplane toilet. But we never see going to, so we feel like 'where the hell is he?' In my opinion, the worst unexplained fact is that Annette's character gets preganant and her preganancy lasts only 3 months (!!!!) and the only thing the doctor says after she gives birth is "Don't tell it to other couple, because they will want it too". Can you believe? Where wouldn't any doctor get worried about something like this? It is unconceivable! All in all, before watching it I knew it was terrible, but not this terrible! Very Sad!
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant and subtle.
Review: The humor may be too low-key and subtle for some people, but this movie is brilliant -- an unsung masterpiece. Garry Shandling is wonderful as Harold Anderson, the nebbish from an advanced alien race .... The cast is incredible but special mention must be given to John Goodman as the agent searching for aliens, Greg Kinnear as the smarmy coworker, and Linda Fiorentino as his glib, cynical wife. .... I've seen it ten times. I'll see it again, too. Wish some other people had; it's so unfortunate that people are rushing out to watch tripe like "The Wedding Planner" and ignoring tasty stuff like this.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and subtle.
Review: The humor may be too low-key and subtle for some people, but this movie is brilliant -- an unsung masterpiece. Garry Shandling is wonderful as Harold Anderson, the nebbish from an advanced alien race .... The cast is incredible but special mention must be given to John Goodman as the agent searching for aliens, Greg Kinnear as the smarmy coworker, and Linda Fiorentino as his glib, cynical wife. .... I've seen it ten times. I'll see it again, too. Wish some other people had; it's so unfortunate that people are rushing out to watch tripe like "The Wedding Planner" and ignoring tasty stuff like this.
Rating: 
Summary: underrated
Review: The set up of this film seems simple and silly enough. On a planet a thousand years more technologically advanced than Earth, the entire population is male clones with no sex organs, no emotions, and
nothing better to do than conquer the Universe. Their technique--though it's never explained--involves impregnating a woman on the planet they wish to take over. So their leader, Graydon--played by
Ben Kingsley in a nice turn--instructs them in the fine art of seducing an Earth woman, which to their minds mainly consists of complimenting her hair and shoes. Their quickest learner, H1449-6 (Gary
Shandling), is chosen to perform the deed and is whisked to Earth where he is deposited in the lavatory of a passenger jet. The disruption this causes the flight brings him to the attention of an NTSB inspector
(John Goodman). But he is able to rapidly establish himself in a job as Harold Anderson, bank loan officer, and, thanks to the womanizing connivance of a co-worker (Greg Kinnear), he's soon romancing a
recovering alcoholic, Susan Hart (Annette Benning), who they meet at an AA meeting where they've gone to scam babes. And so we have the basic dramatic tension of the film: Will Harold be discovered
before he can complete his mission? The film gets to this point mostly on the strength of battle-of-the-sexes humor and some physical comedy involving the mechanical penis that Shandling's character has had attached to enable him to
complete his mission. It continues in this vein through the early portion of Harold's relationship with Susan, but when he ends up having to marry her to get her to bear his child the inevitable humanizing takes
place and a more serious message starts to peak out from beneath the more sophomoric sex comedy and the unfortunately disjointed story line. This initial message concerns the utter emptiness of the
modern mating game, which is all about sex and only peripherally, if at all, about meaningful interaction between two people. By the end--when Harold realizes that Graydon won't let Susan keep their baby
and that the experience of love, loyalty, sex, death, and all the rest that makes us human is superior to the supposedly advanced bioengineered culture of his home world--it's become very much a political
film, whether intentionally or no. It comes down so firmly on the side of humanity as it is, with all our glorious and maddening imperfections, and against the vision of a future that is perfect but soulless, that
regardless of an over reliance on genitalia jokes it ends up being a profoundly conservative movie, and a pretty funny one at that. GRADE: B+
Rating:
Summary: underrated
Review: The set up of this film seems simple and silly enough. On a planet a thousand years more technologically advanced than Earth, the entire population is male clones with no sex organs, no emotions, and
nothing better to do than conquer the Universe. Their technique--though it's never explained--involves impregnating a woman on the planet they wish to take over. So their leader, Graydon--played by
Ben Kingsley in a nice turn--instructs them in the fine art of seducing an Earth woman, which to their minds mainly consists of complimenting her hair and shoes. Their quickest learner, H1449-6 (Gary
Shandling), is chosen to perform the deed and is whisked to Earth where he is deposited in the lavatory of a passenger jet. The disruption this causes the flight brings him to the attention of an NTSB inspector
(John Goodman). But he is able to rapidly establish himself in a job as Harold Anderson, bank loan officer, and, thanks to the womanizing connivance of a co-worker (Greg Kinnear), he's soon romancing a
recovering alcoholic, Susan Hart (Annette Benning), who they meet at an AA meeting where they've gone to scam babes. And so we have the basic dramatic tension of the film: Will Harold be discovered
before he can complete his mission? The film gets to this point mostly on the strength of battle-of-the-sexes humor and some physical comedy involving the mechanical penis that Shandling's character has had attached to enable him to
complete his mission. It continues in this vein through the early portion of Harold's relationship with Susan, but when he ends up having to marry her to get her to bear his child the inevitable humanizing takes
place and a more serious message starts to peak out from beneath the more sophomoric sex comedy and the unfortunately disjointed story line. This initial message concerns the utter emptiness of the
modern mating game, which is all about sex and only peripherally, if at all, about meaningful interaction between two people. By the end--when Harold realizes that Graydon won't let Susan keep their baby
and that the experience of love, loyalty, sex, death, and all the rest that makes us human is superior to the supposedly advanced bioengineered culture of his home world--it's become very much a political
film, whether intentionally or no. It comes down so firmly on the side of humanity as it is, with all our glorious and maddening imperfections, and against the vision of a future that is perfect but soulless, that
regardless of an over reliance on genitalia jokes it ends up being a profoundly conservative movie, and a pretty funny one at that. GRADE: B+
Rating: 
Summary: miserable waste of wonderful talents
Review: The title of this film - `What Planet Are You From?' - might better be addressed to the people who made this miserable excuse for a romantic comedy. What could have been a slashing satire on the roles men and women adopt in relationships - the bestseller `Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus' is never very far from the filmmakers' sensibilities - degenerates in no time at all into little more than a series of tired sex jokes on the level of a junior high school locker room conversation. The waste of acting talent in this film is truly mind-boggling. I am sure that Garry Shandling, Annette Benning, Greg Kinnear, Ben Kingsley, Linda Fiorentino and John Goodman will not be featuring this particular work very prominently on their acting resumes. In fact, the film may well mark the career nadirs for each and every one of these truly talented performers. And what has happened to director Mike Nichols? The Oscar-winning auteur of one of the most prescient and groundbreaking of sexual satires - `The Graduate' - seems totally lost in this venture. (But then again, `The Graduate' was made a whopping 33 years earlier). Evidence of the casual sloppiness of so much of the writing is apparent in the fact that Harold (Shandling) - the alien from an all-male planet sent on a mission to impregnate an earth woman to help in his civilization's quest for universal domination - is so immediately adaptable to the ways and methods of life on earth that he doesn't seem like an alien at all. Most of the attempts at humor early on in the film center around Harold's unsubtle attempts to mate with every woman he meets. But once he has mastered that, he seems totally at home as a man on earth. The film can't even stay true to its own premise. John Goodman, Greg Kinnear and Ben Kingsley are reduced to little more than embarrassed, gaping onlookers to the main narrative strand, as Harold romances Susan (Benning), a stereotypical AA member who has been converted into a mass of twitching insecurities and neuroses thanks to the cavalier treatment she has received from men all her life. This storyline, unfortunately, prevents the film from ever achieving real satirical bite because it leads to an inevitable romantic softness as Harold, predictably, comes - through his relationship with Susan - to value the human traits of love and commitment. So where ARE all the courageous movie satirists these days, the ones truly daring enough to push the envelope of iconoclasm and good taste? Perhaps, as the title of this film would suggest, not on this planet!
Rating:
Summary: Funny, Witty and Endlessly Entertaining
Review: This is a charming, witty, poignant, clever and endlessly entertaining film. Director Mike Nichols ("The Graduate") has deftly handcrafted another wonderful film that can be watched again and again. Shandling's script is funny, modern and urbane yet at the same time sensitive and thoughtful.
The perfomances by each and every actor is terrific, and the comedic timing is right on the money. Greg Kinnear is better than ever and John Goodman turns in yet another great performance. Annette Benning is wonderful; and the ensemble cast of her on-screen girlfriends is terrific. Ben Kingsley is a delight in this droll role as Shandling's on-screen superior. Linda Fiorentino is perfectly cast as the femme fetale.
This was a sleeper at the box office (one heck of a great date movie!) but will keep you laughing and stay wide awake while you enjoy it at home on your VCR or DVD. It's definitely worth a look.
Rating:
Summary: Funny Interplanetary Sex Farce
Review: This is a cute little sex farce starring and written by Garry Shandling. Harold Anderson (Shandling) is actually an alien on a very special mission. He must impregnate an earth woman to begin the infiltration of earth for eventual domination and takeover. He has done his research and learned to be a good listener, dutifully repeating "uh huh" at every utterance by a female. Unfortunately, there are certain subtleties he hasn't mastered in the fine art of seduction, and he gets his face slapped repeatedly. After countless humorous failures he meets his future mate Susan (Annette Benning), and discovers that the only way she will have sex with him is if he marries her. After the nuptials he learns that all the rules of engagement have changed. This droll script ranges from mildly silly to hysterical as it holds a circus mirror up to our mating rituals. Shandling is always funny with his deadpan whiney style, but the real treat here is Annette Benning. She makes this film work as Shandling's overwrought love interest. As she did in "American Beauty", she plays another caricature role to perfection. Here she is the aging female who has been a continual loser at the dating game and is desperately searching for love. Her brilliant performance is a treat that upstages Shandling at every turn. In addition, the rest of the cast is wonderful and fits well with Shandling's wry sense of humor. This is a fun and very light comedy that works well most of the time. I rated it 7/10. Viewers who are offended by nudity, profanity and sexual situations should pass. Others will probably enjoy more than a few good laughs.
Rating:
Summary: Obviously Some People Didn't get It
Review: This is a Sci/Fi Comedy for adults. The spoof of daily interactions of men and women. Gary Shandling gives a good subtle characterization of an emotionally void alien. Well, at least he starts off as emotionally void. You see his mission is to produce a child, initiating the takeover of Earth. Along the way he meets Annette who finds her way into his heart. This film had a very modest box office draw, probably because people took it to seriously. I enjoyed it immensely, and bought it right away. 4 and 1/4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious and Fun!
Review: This movie although ripped by critics had a few laugh out loud moments, but otherwise kept a reletively upbeat mood making it an enjoyable film with an especially good performance by Annette Bening.
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