ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Step parents can be a real pain in the ass . . . especially when one is a clueless blond bimbo from outer space!

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My Stepmother is an Alien (1988)

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Extra silly take on the whole 'visiting alien from outer space' concept. I've always considered Richard Benjamin, who began as an actor, to be just a middle-of-the-road director. His films aren't too bad, but not very good either.

That includes this one. For example, characters tend to repeat certain statements, as if that would make it more funny, not tedious.

Even for a science fiction premise, the science is way off on this one. Aykroyd plays a radical scientist obsessed with contacting alien intelligence in outer space via radio waves. An accident causes his signal to go much further than planned, to another galaxy, making him speculate that it went at the speed of light. However, even at that speed, it would take a million years to reach another galaxy.

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Aykroyd is fired from his university job for almost overloading the building, but he doesn't know that his signal has netted far more results than he bargained for. Very soon, Kim Basinger arrives in her spaceship to investigate the origin of the signal.

Though she is given an instant course in Earth customs & expressions by her personal alien computer, much of the information is flawed, causing her to behave in a slightly bizarre manner in the eyes of Earthlings.

Aykroyd, however, is quickly enchanted by her and, even though her newly-acquired knowledge doesn't include the sex act, the two end up in bed only hours after meeting, and marriage soon after — the rationale is that marriage will cause him to dwell more on scientific pursuits and provide the alien with some answers.



The film is a hit-and-miss affair — Basinger's alien computer aide (voiced by Ann Prentiss), hidden in what looks like a ladies purse and sometimes snaking out like a devious mechanical serpent, is always amusing. But Benjamin also prolongs many scenes past the point of interest. Basinger tends to giggle at times, supposedly to be cute, but it's just dopey.

Jon Lovitz, usually amusing in other film roles, is also inconsistent and just annoying as Aykroyd's less scientific brother and improbable ladies man.

This was the first big film role for Alyson Hannigan as the daughter; she's best known for her regular roles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and How I Met Your Mother.

As indicated by the title, her character is the one who first suspects that her new mom is not from around here (she spots her consuming battery acid, for one thing), starting at the wedding, but her attempts to warn her dad are fruitless. The climax includes a possible end-of-the-world scenario, but this is quickly dispatched with more silliness. Just silly, Silly, silly.

BoG's Score: 6 out of 10

Trivia is an Alien: An early small role for Juliette Lewis as one of Hannigan's friends, a few years before the Cape Fear remake. She's blonde here; also Seth Green, as Hannigan's first date. Harry Shearer provides the voice of a faux Carl Sagan in one scene. At one point, Basinger's alien specifies that she's from a solar system 92 light years away, not another galaxy, but even then, it would have taken 92 years for Aykroyd's signal to reach that far.



BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)