My Favourite Martian film review

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MY FAVOURITE MARTIAN

You sort of assume that, sooner or later, the apparently endless spring of 60s telly shows will have to dry up. At which point, Hollywood will no doubt simply retrain its sights on the 70s for more TV-to-movie transition. That being the case, we are in a lot of trouble.

For the time being, however, there seems little shortage of material, and though the memory of The Avengers leaves everyone in remake territory shuddering at how disastrously pear-shaped things can go, producers are pressing on.

In this instance, it's Disney's live-action unit reworking the comedy caper of a ship-wrecked Martian striving to fix his craft while a desperate reporter attempts to uncover him for the coup of the century.

For those unaware of the original show - which aired between 1963 and 1966 - grumpy, green, gamma-ray-meddling Dr David Banner (Bill Bixby) played the role of Tim O'Hara, here taken over by Jeff Daniels.

Frazzled by competing desires of outright lust and keeping his job, TV news producer O'Hara is doing his level best to turn airhead boss's daughter Brace Channing (Elizabeth Hurley) into a decent presenter.

This, of course, may smooth the passage into her good books and possibly even her bedroom, and all the while, O'Hara somehow fails to notice that smitten camera operator Lizzie (Daryl Hannah) is an infinitely better bet.

And then the knackered spaceship of a being eventually christened Uncle Martin (Christopher Lloyd) - which is like, Martian, right? - does a Roswell right under O'Hara's nose, and he sniffs the First Contact story which will put his career into orbit.

Although skirting that disaster precipice early on, this actually turns out to be rather good, mainly because the obvious (and by now horribly hackneyed) culture-clash, fish-out-of-water howlers are swiftly tempered by a wicked edge to the script and Lloyd's knowing performance.

Special effects eventually get going with some top flight morphing visuals and the introduction of Uncle Martin's silver space-suit as a character in its own right (Zoot), described aptly by director Donald Petrie as 'a cross between Roger Rabbit and the magic carpet in Aladdin.'

And it's characters - including the well-rendered Zoot - which ensure the movie has an attractive charm. Amid the chaotic, cartoonish effects and Petrie's gathering, downhill pace, Daniels, Hannah and Lloyd - each well cast - ensure that the human interest isn't forgotten.