My Favorite Martian

For all their bright colors and cheeriness, so many recent live-action kids' movies have been rather lifeless affairs. And let's face it, another film based on an old television show doesn't seem likely to break the mold. But as the condescending (to earthlings) but bumbling and lovable Martian "Uncle Martin," Christopher Lloyd's patented zaniness is contagious. Everyone involved, from Wallace Shawn as the neurotic, greedy scientist to Ray Walston (the original Uncle Martin in the '60s TV show) as an alien investigator, seems to have a lot of fun parodying and kid-ifying science-fiction conventions. Director Donald Petrie (Grumpy Old Men) sets the appropriate tone with plenty of immature but harmless sight gags and the most cartoonish aliens you've seen this side of the Teletubbies (Jerry Falwell, be warned). Jeff Daniels (as the news reporter who discovers Uncle Martin) and Elizabeth Hurley (as his love interest) acquit themselves respectably.

-- Mark Bazer