Starman (1984)

Good movie but grossly overrated

Fantastic!

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

A 360 degree assault on acting, scriptwriting and on both science AND fiction. Displaying the most risible notion of what an alien visiting Earth would experience - Jeff friggin Bridges' shambolic doppelgänger, clutching its magic balls and teasing out with his immense otherworldly intellect the most witheringly inane platitudes known to man or alienkind. Playing like the first sci-fi sponsored entirely by the Hallmark Channel. A total antithesis to all intelligent discourse on the subject of extraterrestrials with a supporting cast so paper-thin I thought for a moment I was watching GI-Joe. This is Starman. Yes, there are worse films in existence but the fact that this dreck gleaned some measure of critical success has melted my mind.

When you hear "John Carpenter's 'Starman'." it would be natural to assume that said Starman is an alien from outer space who comes to Earth and eventually eats Wilford Brimley, but in fact this is Carpenter showing us a much different side of himself. His Spielberg side. 'Starman' is certainly Spielbergian, feeling equal parts 'E.T.' and 'Close Encounters', but Carpenter never lets it stray into mimicry. The script isn't quite as sentimental as early Spielberg, but it also lacks Carpenter's trademark cynicism. Instead it feels like a more mature, adult take on the themes explored in 'E.T.'.While skillfully directed and featuring a (mostly) solid script, the bulk of the credit for the movie's success goes to Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen. Bridges' performance at first seems too affected, but as the movie progresses you understand what he was doing and you can clearly see the arc for his character's growth as he becomes more comfortable with his body and begins to learn about being human. He was nominated for an Academy Award for the role, and it's easy to see why. But the real star here is Allen. Perhaps best known as Marion from 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', she's the heart and soul of the story, grounding all of the fantastical elements and keeping the focus on the humanity of it.I'd never seen 'Starman', and truthfully had little interest until my friend and I chose the short-lived 'Starman' TV series as the next subject for our blog. And that's what I love so much about going back and watching films like this. You think you know them, but you don't, and that discovery can be incredibly rewarding, as it was here.

I don't know if it's cynical to describe "Starman" as "E.T." for grownups, adults, or what-have-you, but the comparison's certainly there. Which isn't to badmouth "E.T.", goodness knows I hold that movie in high regard. But "Starman" is definitely about healing, either literally with Jeff Bridges and his mystical marbles or helping Karen Allen to grieve her husband's death and start feeling again. Both actors are something to see here. Bridges transforms himself into an innocent, almost mechanized presence as Starman learns the cultures and barbarism of humans. Allen has the market cornered in hopelessly lost and numb. Just seeing here try to define love to an alien is heartbreaking. There is sadness inherent in this movie, but it's also deeply sentimental and will touch even the most hardened.A fine movie indeed.8/10

John Carpenter's STARMAN is a sympathetic star-crossed romance between an alien aka. Starman (Bridges) and an earth woman Jenny (Allen), a rare item in his otherwise horror and action packed works, it is my second film from him, after the disappointingly topsy-turvy BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986, 5/10). First of all, it is a cruel joke on our earthlings, we set off a welcome message into the outer space, and some unspecified highly-intelligent species responses by sending an explorer to our planet, however, the first thing humans do is shooting the vehicles down, then hunting down the e.t. in order to put him on the operation table for dissection. But don't worry, as annoying as the authoritarian NSA chief and the military ostentation and extravagance, things will not descend to that ground. Jenny is recently widowed and still overindulges in the then-sweet-but-now-tormenting memories of his dead husband Scott, so the intrusion of Starman who regenerates himself into a human form of Scott through his hair kept in Jenny's photo album actually gives an impossible chance for Jenny to fall in love with Scott again, thus despite the initial terror to witness the metamorphosis of an unearthly creature turning into Scott, Jenny accepts him almost instantly as subconsciously she knows that her dream comes true in a supernatural version. The pair drives across the country to reach the picking-up location in Arizona, where a mother-ship will take Starman back as it has planned.En route, the affecting binding progress between them takes a lion's share of the film and romance burgeons inevitably and a nice job done by generously allowing Starman some time to learn in his new form as a male human in this three-day span, the film never intend to be a taut action piece or a CGI-ridden arena for Starman to show off his superpower other than when the plot requires, emotion always comes first, even poetically, which one might find it unexpectedly against Carpenter's grain, Jenny and Starman are each other's savior, once they builds the trust and affections, they are inseparable. As corny as that he resuscitates her from death, cures her infertility and gives her a baby boy, whereas she has the relentless will power to bring him to the appointed venue, to eventually save his life, Carpenter and his two leads pull it off satisfactorily. Bridges garners a surprising Oscar-nomination here, he demonstrates a primitive method as a newcomer habituating, mimicking and grasping human behavior, impressively carries on his otherworldliness through the journey with advanced nuances in gesticulation and language capacity. Allen brings about a force of momentum in her more mundane part, overwhelmed by the frisson of regaining and losing again of her true love, she and Bridges share many intimately heartfelt moments in this fanciful tall-tale, its CGI effects inescapably seem dated, but the kernel of its message - to evoke the basic humanity within us, leaves viewers a somewhat palatable taste which injects the movie a vital strength to be finely appreciated.