Starman is one of those films that seemed a little iffy right out of the gate. The whole plot involves an alien impersonating Jenny’s husband and calling it a day. And this film is going to be part romance? Uh ohhhhhhhh. Yeah this is why the film was never going to get particularly far. Throw in that the pacing can be slow and the main character is super annoying and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

The film starts off with an alien crash landing to Earth after the government shot down his space ship. He has 7 orgs/magic spells at the ready and uses one to tell his people that Earth is dangerous. He then sees a widow named Jenny and decides to shapeshift into her dead husband. The alien is now “Scott” but he knows nothing about human customs, their ways, or even about talking. So he gets to work on learning all of this and until he does, he figures Jenny will be his prisoner. Jenny has to try and escape quickly before she falls victim to Stockholm syndrome. Will she be up to the task?

Yeah the romance here is just bad. Since her husband is dead, you would think that the last thing Jenny would tolerate is an alien shapeshifter. I would argue that a normal rebound is even better than this because at least it’s a different person. Choosing to get together with someone who looks like your husband but isn’t is just really eery and not something you should be doing. I would also argue that there is no reason for her to fall for him at all. He basically kidnapped her and then held her against her will for a long while. At what point would that really turn into some kind of admiration? I’m not buying it, no sirrrrrrrr. He basically got her pregnant through alien magic too and she was cool with it.

Jenny started out by being a tough character but started breaking down as the film went on. I would have preferred that she knocked “Scott” out early on and then escaped. She doesn’t have to help the government since those guys were real shady the whole time but not falling in love with this guy is the baseline requirement to being a really solid character here. The romance should have been cut out entirely.

It’s not even to say that “Scott” is a bad guy but I would still put him as more antagonistic than anything. While it takes him a while to learn the human customs so he isn’t intending to be a bad person, you can’t forget that he was completely threatening Jenny. This guy also seemed serious about it and while you know that he is changing, it’s not like you can just quickly see that and get together with him at the drop of a hat. It just doesn’t work like that by any stretch.

The film also suffers in large part due to “Scott” and how long it takes him to get used to Earth. It’s one of those tropes I’ve never been a big fan of where it takes him forever to understand what’s going on. So you see him make a lot of goofy faces, not know how to respond, etc. These scenes take forever and I just really prefer to have a character who is on the ball the whole time. Someone who knows what is going on and is ready to act. With his magic powers surely he could have used one of them to immediately understand human customs or something right? He comes far by the end but at first all of his scenes are absolutely brutal. You’ll be cringing a whole lot and that hurts the pacing.

Meanwhile the government makes for a decent villain but there isn’t a lot to them. They hire a freelancer to help out but that was the government’s mistake as he clearly had disdain for them from the start and instead of helping out he basically makes sure to get in their way the whole time. Seriously they would have been better off without him. In general while the government does get close at times, they rarely feel like much of a threat.

That’s why to add tension we see a deer die which was pretty regrettable. It’s a way for “Scott” to see how cruel the world is and how people hunt other animals. Fortunately he does use his abilities to revive it but it’s a scene that we didn’t really need. Still I wouldn’t say the film was ever aimless or anything. I wasn’t big on that scene of course but the film did have a plan the whole time and went ahead with it. You could easily transform this into a really fun film if you switch up the genre a bit. Have it be a thriller where “Scott” needs to evade the government until his backup arrives. Then we get a classic alien invasion film or something like that. You have to admit that would definitely be a lot of fun!

Of course if you really want to make this plot work, just don’t have Starman turn into her husband. Have him be an ordinary joe and gradually she falls for him. I think you’d still need to bypass all of the threats and such though for this to even be a conversation. Additionally it’s best for her to not even have a dead husband so that it’s not a big rebound like that. That would be an immediate upgrade to the plot and it’s not even that hard to pull off.

Overall, Starman isn’t a particularly good film. I would say that it starts off on the wrong foot with the romance right out of the gate. It’s just hard to get past that because it’s such a bad romance plot that only serves to actively harm the film. It’s hard to survive when one of your main genres is holding you back after all. There’s just no escape from that. Then mix in how Starman’s initial scenes really drag on and that doesn’t help either. To an extent it’s probably trying to be funny but give me the witty fast talking kind of humor over the slow on the uptake version any time. I’d say to avoid this film. The title sounds cool for sure but the actual film isn’t quite up to par.

Overall 3/10