“You are at your very best when things are worst.”

Justin’s rating: E.T. swipe right

Justin’s review: I like me some John Carpenter — the guy’s a cult movie legend for a good reason — but I’ve always skirted by Starman for the sole reason that I couldn’t see him doing a romance movie. That just didn’t make sense to me. It didn’t fit. Even if it had scifi tones.

That sentiment warred with my desire to actually see all of the scifi that the ’80s had to offer. So here I am, just a guy standing in front of a movie asking it to not suck too much.

I will give Starman this: It boasts one of the more implausible and messed-up premises for a romance flick. An alien takes up the invitation from Voyager 2 to visit our planet and promptly gets his ship blown up by trigger-happy earthlings. To survive here, he clones a human from DNA… and assumes the form of a widow’s late husband.

So this grieving widow, Jenny (Karen Allen, Raiders of the Lost Ark), wakes up one night to find her dead husband alive again. Except it’s not her husband, it’s an alien wearing his body like a suit. And that’s enough to send anyone on a fast track to a mental breakdown. Again, that is MESSED UP.

This guy, Starman (Jeff Bridges, The Big Lebowski), is here to learn about our race and emulate human living. But he’s going to have to cut his goodwill visit short because the government is on his tail and he needs to phone home (and get home) before he’s dissected on a lab table.

What better way to spend your time as an extraterrestrial fugitive than to go on a road trip with a widow as your hostage? Jenny and Starman begin making their way from Wisconsin to Arizona, gradually learning about each other and each other’s races. The alien also demonstrates his fun array of ball-infused powers, including creating a GPS map, freaking out hicks, and resurrecting dead deer. Goodness knows that deer are a critically endangered species these days.

Starman is one of those general-purpose films that we don’t see much of these days. It’s got a romance for the ladies, scifi elements for the nerds, and a thrilling chase for the manly men. There’s even a smattering of comedy for all sectors to enjoy.

Jeff Bridges hams it up in a delightful way as a new visitor to our world. He’s utterly weird at the start, jerking around like a bird and coming under the instruction of the earth woman. And while Jenny initially is not inclined to be a part of any of this, she starts softening up along the way and a love connection begins to form.

Still pretty weird though, any way you view it.

What gradually won me over here is that Starman is a good-hearted film. The alien is a nice dude in a rough spot that he doesn’t quite understand. His relationship with Jenny is unexpected for them both, but it breaks through the communication and species barrier because of their mutual kindness. Even one of the scientists following them is a really nice guy who only wants to connect with this alien intelligence and have a chat.

Watching this didn’t change my mind on how weird it seems that John Carpenter directed this — it’s very much not his forte, even though he handles the subject matter OK. But it also didn’t bore me in the least. The pacing kept up well over the two-hour runtime as it bounced between the road trip, comedy, romance, scifi, and chase bits.

Yeah, it’s still a slightly messed-up premise, but so what? Starman makes it work by being completely, totally earnest.

Intermission!

• Jeff Bridges got an Oscar nomination for this, the only such nomination that a John Carpenter project ever received
• Composer Jack Nitzsche’s synth score is so soulful, I really dug it
• What romance movie DOESN’T start with Voyager 2 these days?
• Pretty cool outer space effects for a minute there
• OK that holographic photo album effect is cheesy
• The freaky alien baby will haunt my dreams forever
• Morphing technology wasn’t what it would become back in 1984
• He’s on loan, like a library book
• “How do you melt someone’s lug wrench?”
• “I mean you no harm Jenny Hayden.”
• That lunch sounds amazing
• Even aliens want to eat dessert first
• Why do aliens in movies always change the channel on the TV so frequently? Just pick a show and watch all of it already!
• I always wanted to be a stowaway on a truck half-house!
• Bomb ex machima
• I’ll be honest, I did not expect a sex scene in a PG movie… but then again, this was the ’80s
• They call him… The Gambler
• SETI guys get all the kisses
• This movie bought a Costco pack of helicopters