additional links
Martian Child
Martian Child is a fairly typical John Cusack film, in which neuroses abound. What is surprising is that it isn’t John Cusack being all neurotic, but rather the boy, Bobby Coleman, who is convinced he’s from Mars. The film is very reminiscent of K-Pax, but has far more amusing moments, and fortunately has the expected ending.
Being predominantly a chick flick you know there are going to be depressing moments, but these really are few and far between, allowing it to be a light-hearted movie. Amanda Peet is always good eye candy, so if you guys want to score brownie points at least you’ll have something to look at.
The film follows a predictable route with David (John Cusack) adopting Dennis (Bobby Coleman) who is convinced he’s from Mars. As is traditional to this type of film, both characters learn valuable lessons from each other, and on the verge of losing each other, it all works out. It’s a little weird watching John Cusack being relatively normal, but his traditional neurotic style rears its head and restores balance.
Dodginess
Normally, a movie with the main character as an alien would rate high on the dodginess index. However, this one is surprisingly normal, and only gets 2 Stay Puft Marchmallow Men. There are dodgy moments, but these are not of the alien destroying shampoo enema kind. Instead, they are more quirks of being convinced you’re from another planet. The best of these is when the kid is walking around pretending to be the vacuum cleaner. As stated in the movie, “It’s a Zen thing.”
Rewatchability Rating
I could probably watch this movie a few times, but not often enough for it to earn any higher than a three on the rewatchability index. The main reason for this is that it is a little slow in places, and unfortunately doesn’t have any car chases or explosions to liven it up.
Most Memorable Quote
Again, I find an unusual situation in that there are three lines which all compete for my favour, and the winner only took it by a small margin. “Break it like you mean it” is short, sweet and could probably be used in many situations. The second is after Dennis has renamded the dog Fromar. “It means warm, furry friend in Martian. He chose it.” If my dog wasn’t already names, it would be now, and chances are good that she’ll end up being called that anyway. The final and my favourite is about baseball and coffee. “If you only hit 3 out of ten, you’re a star, and if you’re a little bit better, you’re a superstar… and you get coffee!” After all, wouldn’t it be great if we could all be superstars with only a 30% success rate.
Final Thoughts
The film is very watchable and you should leave it feeling a little better than when you started. If you’re looking to score brownie points, you could do a lot worse than Martian Child, And if you’re just looking for a comedy without the traditional boy meets girl, boy lose girl, boy wins girl back formula, this one’s for you.