WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM?

SYNOPSIS:
An alien named H1449-6 (Garry Shandling) is despatched to Earth from a highly evolved planet populated solely by male-looking beings who do not have reproductive organs. Fitted with a mechanical penis, his mission is to impregnate an Earth woman and procreate, thus ensuring the survival of his species. Assuming the name Harold Anderson he takes up a position in a bank and befriends womanising Perry (Greg Kinnear), with whose help he meets recovering alcoholic Susan Hart (Annette Bening). Harold, who is being trailed by suspicious Federal Aviation Authority investigator Roland Jones (John Goodman), proves inept at dealing with human emotions, threatening the success of his appointed task.

"The Larry Sanders Show (which starred Garry Shandling) was reason enough for anyone to subscribe to Foxtel. Director Mike Nichols has been on an impressive run with Wolf, Primary Colors and The Birdcage in recent years and Annette Bening has hardly put a foot wrong since her debut in The Great Outdoors in 1988. So what went wrong here? What's supposed to be a clever satire on the mating game unfortunately turns out to be a fairly dumb and tasteless sex comedy which uses a mechanical penis which hums when aroused as one of its comic centrepieces. It's a vanity project for Shandling who also co-wrote the story and screenplay but he doesn't serve himself well in either department. The humour is too crude (or perhaps not crude enough, if gross-out's your thing) to elicit many laughs from the scenario and it makes the ill-advised decision to play meaningful towards the end. Shandling is far too uncharismatic to even make a go of it although Bening - the film's saving grace - manages to give her character a depth so sadly lacking elsewhere. Although What Planet Are You From is a bad misfire it does have a few more chuckles than Snow Day and Road Trip but nowhere near as many as you'd expect from the talent involved."
Richard Kuipers