Did you ever get excited about a Movie Trailer so much so that you made a mental note so that when that move finally came out months later you'd remember to see it? Did you follow through on that only to regret your decision afterwards and wonder what it was that got you all excited in the first place? If not, Martian Child is a perfect case study of just such a scenario.
WIFEY'S REVIEW
Girls get out a box of tissues on this one!Ok, this one was good! Here's a breakdown…A happily married husband and wife want to have kids and all of a sudden the wife dies leaving the husband behind and so devastated, but still wanting children although not ready to get re-married so he decides to adopt.
He goes to this one agency and plays around with some of the kids, but sees/hears this one particular little boy who intrigues him in many ways. Only seeing from under a box, David (John Cusack) inquires about Dennis a.k.a. the "Martian Child" (Bobby Coleman).
David decides to give it a chance with him and he adopts Dennis. Boy did it go wrong in so many ways! He’s afraid of the light, he only comes out of his box at night, and he talks really weird, but that’s what made this movie so interesting to watch - just to see how David was going to get Dennis out of his shell.
I give it 2.5 Ben & Jerry's.
HUBBY'S REVIEW
I tend to like anything with John Cusack in it. He just always seems like a real, genuine person and the type of characters he often plays are generally the same.
That makes me wonder if he’s that type of person himself or if he choose characters who he'd like to resemble more. I'm guessing it's the former because he makes acting seem so effortless.
Ok, my John Cusack man-crush is over. Sorry about that. Not sure what just happened.
This was a gentle, light-hearted film about a boy who needs a family and a man who lost his when his wife - his lover and his best friend - passed away. Oh yeah, and the boy also thinks he’s from Mars while the man writes about Mars for a living as a full-time Novelist.
It’s about what you would expect as it pulls the heart-strings several times, but in all the cliched ways. Where I personally felt the movie failed was by not giving us more of the child’s background. I just thought that they missed out on an HUGE opportunity to really connect emotionally with the audience if they had only given specifics about what he had to endure and suffer through instead of just saying, “He had it bad because he was abandoned.” Ok, well, puppy dogs get abandoned too, but even the SPCA knows how to paint a picture and tell a story to get you to feel so sorry for the dog that you end up adopting it on the spot.
For instance, there was one moving scene where he is unpacking his suitcase. From the outset, we learn that whatever’s in there is extremely valuable to him because he refuses to let anyone help him carry it let alone touch it. We then watch him unpack the items and treat each one with extreme care. They appear to be random too, which led me to think that the audience was going to sob (myself included) once we learned where they came from and why he’s kept them for so long as well as what each one means to him personally.
Not a chance.
Therein began the first of many “let-downs” for me by the filmmakers.So, while this movie had the potential of being something great it actually left me feeling like I did after seeing I Am Sam.
If I wanted to watch a Lifetime Network made-for-TV-movie I would’ve saved my $4.00 and turned on the Dish.
2 Ben & Jerry’s out of 5 for me and that's being kind. That makes this film's official Our Movie Date score a whopping 2.25 so it's a so-so flick.
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