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Martian Child (Frank's take)
01/12/2007 . Source: Frank Ochieng 
Droopy-faced, puppy-dog eyed John Cusack has been charming movie audiences for many years with his ability to convey a dripping sentimentality in feel-good cinema. Cusack has grown up before our very presence as a different kind of tortured teen in cinema-amiably unsure, sensitive, romantic, gently flawed, understanding and introspective. Thankfully, finds Frank, forty-something Cusack hasn't shied away from this on-screen trademark persona in adult life, either. Buy Martian Child in the USA - or Buy Martian Child in the UK  In director Menno Meyjes's heavy-handed sci-fi father-and-son fantasy Martian Child, this cloying claptrap of a character study uses Cusack to his fullest capacity of melancholy merit. Unfortunately for Martian Child this cutesy but cornball cross between E.T. and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence has more maple sap pouring out of it than a neglected Vermont tree looking for a good tapping.
Meyjes and screenwriters Seth Bass and Jonathan Tolins try to bring David Gerrold's heart-warming autobiographical novel to considerable life in the form of their moping melodrama about tag team oddballs finding comfort in each other's lingering loneliness. Ideally, Martian Child means well in its quiet examination of alienation but this safe-minded saga about nonconformity just doesn't quite fill the craters on the moon. The proposed pathos never stabilizes itself beyond the obviousness of the intensified schmaltz factor. Conventionally deemed as a soggy sci-fi soap opera, Martian Child fails to pack any surprises or suspense that would lend Meyjes's whimsical narrative any deep-seeded emotional heft.
Science fiction writer David Gordon (Cusack) was a former geek during his isolated childhood. Nowadays, David is a successful scriber although he cannot help still feeling like an outcast courtesy of his awkward upbringing. Curiously, there is something missing from David feeling empowered and complete. The fact that the recent widower has lost his beloved wife makes David all the more desperate for fulfilment in his stagnant livelihood. Thus, how is our heartbroken hero going to rectify his mundane malaise?
In the middle of contemplating the thought of adoption to cure his emptiness, David heads to a local orphanage where he comes across a weird little boy named Dennis (Bobby Coleman, "Must Love Dogs"). Dennis has a strange impulse to being holed up in a cardboard box. Furthermore, David learns that the kooky kid has a vivid imagination when the tyke refers to himself as an alien boy trying to manage his troubled life on earth. In a way, David identifies with Dennis because he knows what it's like to be considered distinctively different.
Anyhow, David becomes an instant daddy dearest to Dennis and starts catering to the twisted tot's whims about being a mini-space specimen. In addition to Dennis seeking solitude in boxes, he likes to hang upside down like a playful bat from another galaxy. Whatever the case David wonders about his newly obtained son's claim that he's a product from Mars.
The boy's bizarre behaviour leads David to ponder the thought that maybe his new charge is an out-of-this-world youngster-his very own Elroy Jetson of you will. Regardless of the looming doubts, David learns to accept Dennis as a terrestrial tyke whose withdrawn characteristics but peculiar spirits tests his boundaries for plagued parenthood. Still the dysfunctional duo persists as two-of-a-kind misfits that excel on the other's silent desperation and need for self-reflection.
Sadly, Martian Child is a ponderous portrait of low-key warped sensibilities where a couple of lost souls try to find the relevance in their tattered existences. Meyjes tries gallantly to find the poetry behind this peculiar pair's angst-ridden agenda but never successfully draws out the psychological turmoil that percolates under the cynical skin. Woefully mawkish and meandering, Martian Child is blandly impish about its cheesy manipulation. The tame gimmickry of a supposed "boy-may-be-or-not-be-an-alien" shtick is never manifested from a tepid teaspoon of teasing. In several ways Meyjes's forlorn fable is calculating in mustering up its weepy wonderment but if it was directed shrewdly then there wouldn't be the need to feel exploited by the syrupy material.
Cusack is reliable as his solemn self-a slightly damaged man contained in his own womb of despair that he remains stationary in his aimless thoughts. As David Gordon, Cusack plays everything sedate that reminds moviegoers of his easy-going manner and accessible likeable demeanour. For Coleman's take as the quirky kid with an underlying contempt, his Dennis is somewhat heartfelt but is a slave to his incomprehensible whispers and muttering. Cusack is winningly effective as the father figure that encourages the offbeat quirks of his disturbed boy but his performance isn't potent enough to uplift this drippy drama.
The supporting cast is pretty standard in their participation. Amanda Peet is on board as a platonic female friend of David's and his late spouse (yes, the predictable romantic sparks somehow gradually develop between the twosome). Former Oscar-nominee Joan Cusack-John's real-life big sister-plays his sibling in the movie and provides some jumpy chuckles.
Oliver Platt is in typical stand-by mode as David's agent/friend. Plus, the obligatory villain that wants to disturb the off-kilter bonding between David and Dennis is a pesky child services worker (Richard Schiff from TV's "The West Wing") poking around with boundless determination.
Ready for a nursery rhyme for our planetary prepubescent space cadet? Here goes: Respected sad sack Cusack may deserve a well-earned clap but the anaemic moody movie that employs him is saturated in perpetual pap.
Frank Ochieng
(c) Frank Ochieng 2007
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