Starman

In 1977, the Voyager 2 travels to the outer space with messages of peace and greetings from Earth. A small alien spacecraft comes to Earth to make contact with Earthlings but the military airplanes shoot it down. The spacecraft crashes in Chequamegon Bay, Wisconsin and the alien wanders in a form of energy to the house of the young widow Jenny Hayden (Karen Allen), where he uses the DNA from a hair of her husband Scott (Jeff Bridges) to take his human form. The Starman contacts his mother ship and he needs to be in a crater Arizona in a couple of days to return to his star; otherwise he will be left behind and will die.

The Starman forces Jenny to take him to Arizona and she is hostile with him in the beginning. However, she learns that he is a peaceful being and she chooses to help him. But the army is chasing them and the despicable NSA chief George Fox (Richard Jaeckel) wants to hunt him down while the SETI scientist Mark Shermin (Charles Martin Smith) wants to help The Starman since he is sure that he has come to visit Earth peacefully.

"Starman" is still a wonderful sci-fi after thirty years. Nominated to the Oscar and to the Golden Globe, Jeff Bridges has magnificent performance and chemistry with Karen Allen. John Carpenter succeeds once again and makes a movie with a beautiful story, with drama, romance, action and humor. I saw this movie many times in the past on VHS but today I saw it on Blu-Ray. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Starman - O Homem das Estrelas" ("Starman - The Man from the Stars")

Note: On 25 August 2020, I saw this film again.

Note: On 28 February 2025, I saw this film again.

Starman is certainly a bit of a departure for director John Carpenter. It seems that after the box-office disappointment of The Thing (1982) he decided that his next return to the alien film should be something less scary and more in line with the E.T. (1982) template. The result is a John Carpenter film that is decidedly more gentle natured than we had seen up to that point. After learning about humanity from the space probe Voyager 2 an alien crash lands on Earth and assumes the identity of a dead man. He enlists the reluctant help of the wife of this deceased individual in his mission to return home. Needless to say, the authorities pursue him, hell bent on preventing his departure.

This change of pace for Carpenter is another film which shows the care he gave to all his movies. The story is solid, if nothing especially great. But it's nicely shot and paced, with some engaging performances, especially from Karen Allen as the bemused woman taken along for the ride by the alien. Jeff Bridges puts in an original enough turn as the starman, although it is definitely quite surprising he was Oscar nominated for it. In essence this is a road movie with a romantic sub-plot that is based around a sci-fi premise. It's fairly successful in each of its sub-genres and is a very likable piece of work overall. And for what it's worth, I much preferred it to E.T.

I'm amazed more people didn't point out the similarities in plot to E.T. when this adult version of basically the same tale came out. Maybe it was because Jeff Bridges performance is absolutely mesmerising, that you're much more interested in the characters than the plot, so you don't notice.

Basically, a perfect little movie. Beautifully and simply set up, the characters develop naturally in such a way that keeps you hooked right through to the end of the film. The strength of the central relationship distracts you from little infelicities, such as the fact that "Jennyhayden" seems remarkably incurious about her alien visitor - even after she gets to know him, it's not until he's about to leave that she asks him what his world is like! The film nicely points out the irony of our having extended welcoming greetings to the Universe, while our own mutual distrust causes us to shoot down every unexpected flying visitor. Having established that, however, Richard Jaekel's character seems to be pursuing the violent solution for its own sake without really exploring any motivation. When Charles Martin Smith points out that our behaviour does appear a little rude, Jaekel doesn't even have an answer for him - he's just going to try to kill the alien because that's his role in the movie I guess!

"Do you know what I find most beautiful about you? You are at your best when things are at their worst."

Well, it has been 19 years - I guess that the "boy baby" has grown up. Time for the sequel, methinks!!

Starman is directed with panache and confidence by one of my all time favorite directors John Carpenter; what follows is a fairly memorable ride. It's slightly derivative, but it's so entertaining, it didn't matter in the whole scheme of things. The heart and soul of this movie is Jeff Bridges; the weight falls on his shoulders, and he is more than up for the task. He could have played the role in very corny fashion, but he felt like somebody that wasn't human. Watching him evolve throughout the film was a delight to watch, and so was his chemistry with Karen Allen. Karen Allen is pretty awesome herself in a more subtle way. She is extremely likable, and very easy on the eyes to boot. There were a couple questionable decisions I had with her character, but other than that, she was excellent. I didn't care for the "government trying to stop him" thing though. It's a natural part of the movie and had to happen, but I thought it was rather blandly done and they didn't go far enough with it. They redeemed themselves with a pretty good ending to end things on.

Final Thoughts: Minor carps aside, I really enjoyed this film. It deserves to be talked about in the upper echelon of Carpenter's films. If you're a fan of Jeff Bridges & John Carpenter, or just want a solid Sci-Fi film to watch, this is a good selection

7.5/10

Given director John Carpenter's predilection for horror - I'm thinking HALLOWEEN and THE THING, of course - you wouldn't imagine him to be best suited to the job of directing STARMAN, a cross-country romance with a science fiction twist. And yet he does a blinding job, and STARMAN proves to be a fine little movie; in parts poignant, touching and altogether human.

Although this film came out in the wake of E.T., I find it superior to the overly-sentimental Spielberg movie. The storyline is subtle and the developing central relationship is slow paced, taking time to get to know the protagonists and present them in a realistic light. The love story between Allen and Bridges is low key throughout, and even the love scenes are handled sensitively.

Allen has always seemed to me to be a completely natural actress, free from artifice; she has a rare ability to inhabit her roles which makes you wonder why she didn't become a bigger name. Opposite her in an Oscar-nominated performance stands Jeff Bridges, playing it kooky and mannered as the alien-in-a-man's-body; there's something oddly moving about his role in this film and he soon had me completely engaged in his character.

Yes, I'll admit that I shed a tear or two at the moving climax, even though I'm a totally non-romantic person when it comes to films and you can usually find me watching gory horror flicks instead. Saying that, watch out for the utterly eerie scene at the opening when a baby transforms into a man. This scene scared the hell out of me when I saw it as a kid, and even today the icky sound and physical effects bring to mind a certain ice-bound Carpenter classic!