One-Joke Celluloid Presentation Amusing

"Coneheads," the new Dan Aykroyd-Jane Curtin comedy about pointy-headed aliens who immigrate to Earth, is, as its main characters would say, a celluloid presentation with only one amusement unit.

In other (human) terms, it's a one-joke movie.

Fortunately, that joke--the aliens vs. American culture thing--works. Aykroyd is Beldar and Curtin his wife Prymaat. They hail from Remulak, a planet many zerls away (that's 2.17 light years) which rotates around the Black Hole (the center of its binary system.

Belder and Prymaat are well on their way to a conquest of the bluntheads that inhabit Earth when they crash-land in New York harbor. The Conehead command back on Remulak is upset that they have damaged their space vehicle, so they are forced to fit in with Earthlings while they wait for relief. The wait could last many years. Beldar quickly realizes they are scrabnord (screwed).

Family life is not easy, but Beldar takes a job first as an appliance mechanic and later a taxicab driver. He's a born worker, and the family achieves the American dream of middle-class bliss.

Of course, there's the little manner of establishing identity in a society where the government is always watching. The Coneheads are illegal aliens, and they are pursued by an overzealous INS.

Beldar needs an identity, and Saturday Night Live regular Adam Sandler, playing a slimy Italian con man in a hilarious scene, gives him an Italian-sounding name and a past. "You were born in Brockton, Massachusetts," he says. "You attended Hobart College."

Besides the Sandler scene, the movie has two outstanding humorous metaphors...er, comedic moments. One is a home movie sequence during which we see Beldar and Prymaat's precious "young one," Connie, reach maturity. There are all the obligatory black-and-white clips of the typical American young family, with a twist. Beldar, like any proud father, is seen tossing his baby into the air. He just throws her 40 or 50 feet higher than most dads would.

The second is a meeting between the Coneheads and two INS agents (one played by Saturday Night Live's own David Spade) who are posing as Jehovah's Witnesses in an attempt to bust the pointy heads for being illegal aliens.

"The end of the world is coming," say the INS agents/Jehovah's witnesses. "Only the 100,000 or so witnesses will be saved."

"It will be considerably fewer than that," the Coneheads reply knowingly, having already planned out an Armageddon-like attack.

The performances by the supporting cast make the movie. Michelle Burke plays Connie perfectly as the prototypical first generation immigrant--torn between her parent's culture and the culture she is growing up in.

Saturday Night Live stars present and past make appearances. Jan Hooks plays a vamp with designs on Beldar. Phil Hartman is Marlax, a family friend back on Remulak. SNI creator Lorne Michaels is the producer here, too.

But the best comedic turn is by Chris Farley as Ronnie, the honobsessed (oversexed) beau of Connie. In a movie about prissy, controlled aliens with symmetrical cones on their heads, Farley is perfectly unkempt and asymmetrical. He almost steals the film.

The movie ends just as its one joke is petering out. The aliens fit in, and the world...er, universe is a better place. In short, "Coneheads" is a genuinely funny movie which would make a good activity after an evening at a local house of intake (restaurant).

The film's characters are simply more memorable--and seem more real--than those in movies which are supposed to be about real life (such as the overrated Nora Ephron snoozer "Sleepless in Seattle"). For all the focus on head shapes, this celluloid presentation is special because it's got something very human: corpuscle-churning muscle, also known as "heart."