OxfordPress.com

Grade: C-

Verdict: Rock rocks. His movie doesn't.

Details: Starring Chris Rock, Regina King and Chazz Palminteri. Directed by Chris and Paul Weitz. Rated PG-13 for profanity, brief sexual situations and unsavory characters. One hour, 27 minutes.

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Review: Chris Rock is the best thing in "Down to Earth."

Fortunately, he's in the movie more than anyone else.

Unfortunately, he sometimes has to abandon his stand-up material and say the lines in the script.

"Down to Earth" is an almost scene-by-scene remake of 1978's "Heaven Can Wait" starring Warren Beatty (which was a remake of 1941's "Here Comes Mr. Jordan"). The major differences are: The movie plays the race card (fairly cleverly), and Rock is an aspiring stand-up comic instead of a pro football player like Beatty.

If you haven't seen the Beatty version or don't remember it very well, here's the basic plot: Lance Barton (Rock) is mistakenly taken to heaven by a bumbling angel (Eugene Levy) before his due date. Up there--heaven's way station looks like a '40s nightclub, a nice touch--Levy's superior (Chazz Palminteri) tries to rectify the blunder. He'll find Lance a new body on Earth--a rental, so to speak. The best available choice is a wealthy old white guy whose body Lance almost rejects. Until, that is, he sees a beautiful crusader (Regina King) storm into the corpse-to-be's penthouse demanding to know if he's going to turn the community hospital he just purchased into a private institution. A smitten Lance decides to stick around.

Which is more than a lot of people in the audience may want to do.

The movie's gimmick--that, while we see and hear Rock, everyone else sees and hears the wealthy old white guy--is a good one, and the film has some fun with a white fat cat talking like a brother or doing racially pointed stand-up comedy in his yachting jacket ("They got nothing in black malls except tennis shoes and baby clothes"). Still, you can laugh at the juxtaposition only so many times. And the movie repeats it over and over and over.

Further, the filmmakers don't seem to know what to do with their star. Because he's young, funny and African-American, they present him as if he were the next Eddie Murphy. Actually, he's something much better: the first Chris Rock. That's why the movie only takes off when he's doing his own material. And even then, he's not allowed to be as edgy as he is on his HBO specials.

What's happened, essentially, is that a first-rate talent has been stuck in a second-rate vehicle. Rock deserves better. So do his zillions of fans.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, (none)