Earth Girls Are Easy Review

Earth Girls Are Easy
Mac (Goldblum) and his chums get up to all manner of scrapes trying to come to terms with the donut and disco culture of the San Fernando Valley, where they land from outer space. Thankfully, Valerie (Davis) is on hand to offer a warm Valley Girl welcome.

by Kim Newman |
Published on
Release Date:

01 Jan 1988

Running Time:

100 minutes

Certificate:

PG

Original Title:

Earth Girls Are Easy

This zippy cross between My Stepmother is an Alien and Beach Blanket Bingo, adapted from a novelty song by co-star Julie Brown, proved that director Julien Temple could still get a job after the debacle of Absolute Beginners, though his arm-waving staging of Brown's material also proved that he still couldn't really handle musical numbers.

After the UFO landing business, a trip to the beauty shop, where Brown sings a ditty in celebration of ditziness (‘I’m a Blonde’) gets the hirsute creatures shaved into reasonable approximations of humanity, and everyone goes out on the town for, like, some totally tubed-out Californian times.

In a jokey reprise of their relationship in The Fly, Goldblum, least hyperactive of the aliens, falls for the bikini-clad, long-limbed Davis, while Carrey and Wayans, en route to different perches in the knockabout comedy star pantheon, do a lot of Mork from Ork schtick and cars get crashed all over the shop.  With a basic plot reminiscent of Pajama Party, in which Martian Tommy Kirk romanced Annette Funicello, this is less interested in the s-f comedy side of it all than in extravagantly painted nails, gaudy clothes and stoned slang of the Valley setting.

It is a colourful, distinctive movie and fast enough to get round its dud jokes, badly-mixed songs and general predictability.  Davis and Goldblum add some notes of sanity to the whole thing, which is otherwise eternally in danger of collapsing under the weight of its own jokiness.  However, it’s a treat for lovers of bright colours, '50s kitsch sci-fi trappings, poolside parties and Carry On Doctor.

The comedy is hit-and-miss but this is a vibrant, watchable movie
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