...and THE WALT DISNEY. COMPANY.

What do you get when you throw together a few three-eyed monsters, a polymorphic silver suit that dances to Caribbean rhythms, an ambitious television news reporter who can't leave his car without getting his jacket stuck in the door, a Martian whose idea of a good time is eating about 30,000 gallons of ice cream (give or take a few) and a scientist who examines mucous-like substances by tasting them? My Favorite Martian, an entertaining Disney concoction whose lively physical comedy and occasionally amusing one-liners barely compensate for a weak plot line and nauseatingly cliched subtext.

The fiasco begins as Tim O'Hara (Jeff Daniels) is driving home in his beat-up, smoking car after sabotaging his news reporting career by unintentionally flirting with the boss's daughter (Elizabeth Hurley). Suddenly, a flash of light illuminates the sky, and he slams on the brakes. A spacecraft has landed on the nearby Enter Martian--a red, three-eyed creature who sees O'Hara recovering from the shock and, realizing he has landed on planet earth, chews on a piece of blue gum enabling him to transform into Christopher Lloyd. Grace, the spoiled boss's daughter whose glossy lipstick, tight apparel and wonder-bra breasts reek of superficiality, pulls up in her red sports car equipped with a "Dad's Girl" license plate. Emanating her usual "don't-you-want-to-slap-me" self, she asks O'Hara "why the hell" had he stopped in the middle of the road, but O'Hara dismisses her and investigates the crash site. Employing Martian technology, Lloyd shrinks his spacecraft to the size of a toy, and O'Hara lifts the strange object off the beach, thus commencing the zaniness.

After O'Hara brings the miniature spaceship home, the viewer gets a taste of the physical comedy that serves as the film's saving grace. The alien's spacesuit, possessing a life and personality of its own, startles O'Hara in his living room by slapping him on the behind. O'Hara seizes a golf club and chases the suit around the room. Tumbling over the furniture while Zoot does summersaults, O'Hara finally ends up cracking himself with the club only to wake up attached to the ceiling. The scene, although pure, unoriginal slapstick, provides a good laugh.

Lloyd would gladly leave the "savage" earthling at peace and return to his beloved Mars, but he must build an electron accelerator (which later on turns out to be a simple carburetor) to repair his damaged spacecraft. So the Martian, later dubbed "Uncle Martin," becomes O'Hara's roommate. Meanwhile, thinking that he has stumbled upon the story of the millennium, O'Hara schemes to film the Martian and broadcast on the evening news.

The plot moves forward as a sense of urgency is introduced: Martin must repair the spaceship soon or else the ship's Interstellar Safety System, designed to keep other races from acquiring the advanced Martian technology, will explode. Meanwhile, a government agency, SETI has been trying to find the Martian. Will Uncle Martin get off the planet before the greedy scientists get their hands on him?

This plot twist facilitates one of the more humorous scenes as a high-speed chase ensues between the O'Hara-Martin duo and the scientists. To escape the government agents, Martin shrinks the car so that it fits in the sewer. O'Hara, speeding away from a roto rooter, drives into somebody's toilet and suspense music fills the theater. The scene moves in slow motion: an extremely obese man opens the bathroom and slowly sits on the toilet. O'Hara and Martin turn their heads to each other, wearing the faces of horror at the realization that massive amounts of excrement are about to dumped on top of their car. The man on the toilet peruses the illuminating literature of Playboy magazine and suddenly the car explodes from to its original size, bursting the toilet open and catapulting the man across his lawn.

Interspersed between the occasional defecation and perverted spying of a man taking a bath, My Favorite Martian lacks cohesiveness. Such a shortcoming can be seen in O'Hara's sudden deep sense of friendship with Uncle Martin. After one conversation with Martin in the bathroom about O'Hara's non-existent love life, they become best of friends and O'Hara no longer wants to gain fame by broadcasting his Martian footage. This contrived sense of friendship is highlighted by Daniels's poor performance in making the scene come alive and injecting emotional reality into his character. In another instance, Daniels does not make a shift in his character's thinking believable when he suddenly realizes that he loves Lizzie, a co-worker played by Daryl Hannah, and not Grace. His acting comes off as dry and contrived as the plot.

Director Donald Petrie's creation fails in other ways, especially when trying to convey any sense of substance. Throughout, My Favorite Martian highlights the shortcomings of humanity by contrasting Martian super-intelligence with human stupidity. Martians use 100 percent of their brain capacity while humans use 10 percent; humans are the "amoebas of the universe;" humans are "savages." Such a message in itself does not diminish the movie's appeal but rather the vehicle used to send the message. During one of the last scenes, when Martin is about to leave earth, he hops in his spacecraft and says, "A word of advice: take care of your oceans and do away with daytime talk shows." Not only does the joke fall flat, its attempt to send a serious message within the context of a film whose merit lies in slapstick comedy is simply ludicrous and heightens the unoriginality of the cliche. Such a message seems out of place.

Without Christopher Lloyd, whose physical gestures, bulging eyes and quirky hand movements steal the comedic presence of the film and decent special effects, My Favorite Martian would be a Disney failure. If you want an evening of brainless, unoriginal entertainment, then this intergalactic comedy is the place to be.