This is from an actual conversation overheard at a promotional screening for Down to Earth:

PATRON: Do you know what this movie is about?

USHER: Which movie are you here to see?

PATRON: I don't know - the free one.

USHER: It's called Down to Earth.

PATRON: Oh.  <pause>  Isn't that an old movie?

USHER: Well, it's supposed to be a remake of Heaven Can Wait.

PATRON: No, I mean didn't Down to Earth come out last year?

USHER: I don't think so, lady.

PATRON: Sure it did.  Wasn't that the one with Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Julia Stiles?

USHER: No, that was Down to You.

PATRON: Oh.  <pause>  Wait, I got it.  It was the one with that girl that looks like Helen Hunt and that boy from Election.

USHER: No, that was...shoot.  I can't think of the name.  It's right on the tip of my tongue.

PATRON: Yeah, that was the one, I think.  She lived on a farm and fell in love with a rich guy.

USHER: Here on Earth!  That's what it was.  Here on Earth.

PATRON: Oh.  <pause>  That's just confusing.  Do you think they've run out of titles?

USHER: <laughs>  You think that's confusing?  Try selling tickets when Bamboozled and Bedazzled are both playing.  Or The Legend of Drunken Master and The Legend of Bagger Vance.  Or Saving Silverman and Save the Last Dance.

PATRON: So who's in this movie?

USHER: Chris Rock.

PATRON: Oh, I just loved him in that movie with Jackie Chan.

USHER: No, that was Chris Tucker.

PATRON: Oh.

USHER: Chris Rock was in Nurse Betty and Dogma and Lethal Weapon 4.

PATRON: And the voice of the hamster in Doctor Dolittle?

USHER: Yup.

PATRON: But he's the star of this one?

USHER: Yup.

PATRON: Oh.  <pause>  Can you tell me which theatre The Wedding Planner is in?

Believe it or not, some people know who Chris Rock is, and some people will pay to see him on the big screen.  Sure, Down to Earth is his first starring role (not counting the New Jack City spoof, CB4), and it's recycled from a script (Heaven Can Wait) that was a recycled script itself (Here Comes Mr. Jordan), but Rock is a very funny guy with a very funny talk show on HBO.

Rock plays Lance Barton, a bike messenger and struggling stand-up comedian from New York City.  Lance's routine is awful, and he is called Booey by people familiar with his act.  His dream is to win a highly coveted slot at the Apollo for the legendary theatre's last night before it closes up for good.  It's amusing to watch Rock, a brilliant comedian, playing a character who bombs on stage (it's better than Seinfeld taking a dive to throw off Kenny Bania), but it's even funnier to watch the wiry actor ride a bike, and funnier yet to see his narrow head in a giant bike helmet.

The unintentional sight gag only lasts for a second, because Lance is hit by a truck and dies.  Because of a clerical error in Heaven, Lance is given the chance to temporarily inhabit another person's body until a more suitable host can be located by his angels (Eugene Levy and Chazz Palminteri).  He picks the corpse of Charles Wellington, the 15th richest man in America who, like his Heaven Can Wait counterpart, was poisoned by his wife (Jennifer Coolidge, Best in Show) and her lover (Greg Germann, Sweet November).

As an old, fat, white guy, Lance's racially charged act doesn't exactly play well with the brothers.  His problems are compounded when he falls in love with a woman (Regina King) who hates his guts for cutting funding to the Brooklyn hospital that employs her.  Don't worry - it all works out in the end.  It's cute, predictable and sporadically funny.

Earth is rated PG-13, which means that Rock's trademark adult humor is completely absent.  Rock without the F-word is like the Lakers without Shaq - sure, they're still going to win some of the time, but it's just not the same.  There are only a few scenes where you see Rock's character in Wellington's body – thankfully, he doesn't don a fat suit like The Nutty Professor.

Speaking of The Nutty Professor, two of that film's screenwriters – Chris and Paul Weitz – directed Earth.  They're probably better known by the unwashed masses for their teen sex romp, American Pie, but savvy moviegoers will recognize them from Chuck and Buck.  The Weitz brothers use two actors from Pie here (Levy and Coolidge, who played Stifler's mom), as well as a number of performers from Rock's HBO show, including the immensely hysterical Wanda Sykes, who steals every scene she's in.

1:26 –

for language, sexual humor and some drug references