Chris Klein made his big-screen acting debut less than a year ago but still managed to be cast in two of the year’s funniest films – Election and American Pie.  His buff bod and goofy good looks made him a natural to tackle the brainless jock-type roles that decent American comedies seem to always need.  You could laugh just looking at him.  So who decided that he should star in a romantic drama?

Klein stars as Kelley Morse, a Princeton-bound rich kid who, as the film opens, learns that his father won’t be able to attend his graduation ceremony because of an important business trip.  As the class valedictorian, Kelley’s pop will also miss his son’s speech to the graduating class of Rallston, a private high school in the middle of nowhere.  In fact, it’s so in-the-middle-of-nowhere that Earth doesn’t seem to know where it’s supposed to be set.  It was filmed in Minnesota, but they definitely made it seem like it was supposed to be set in New England – specifically outside Boston.  But there’s a bus that says Buffalo (NY) and there’s a baseball stadium emblazoned “Go Mud Hens,” which would imply Toledo (OH).  Maybe the title is supposed to be a clever play on the film’s patchy locations, but that’s pretty unbelievable seeing how Earth displays no other ingenuity whatsoever.

Basically, Earth is about Kelley falling in love with a simple farm girl that he meets in the nearby town.  Samantha Cavanaugh (Leelee Sobieski, Eyes Wide Shut) already has a long-term relationship (as well as a strange knee problem) with Jasper Arnold (Josh Hartnett, The Faculty), but is quickly swept off her feet by Kelley.  Does Sam choose the boy born with a silver fork, knife and spoon in his mouth, or stick with the boy she grew up with, even though he’s a backwoods, Bible-thumping simpleton?  Two words – Darva Conger.  Even though Sam’s sister had her big dumb country heart broken by a Rallston boy, Sam still ditches Jasper for the boy with the perfect hair that can buy and sell her a million times over.  Does anybody actually root for characters like this?

The story is nothing new, so let’s talk about the execution (or lack thereof).  Earth is packed full of wuss-rock, from the Goo Goo Dolls’ ballad over the title cards, right through to Jessica Simpson’s closing credits stinker.  It also offers the most ridiculous sexual precursor since the Affleck/Tyler animal cracker scene in Armageddon when Kelley kisses Sam’s feet and moves up her body naming each of her “parts” after U.S. states.  One could even argue that Kelley is in the midst of a massive sexual identity crisis, since he found his naked mother dead in a bathtub some years earlier.  Oh, and he has a girl’s name, and is chasing after someone named Sam.

Multiplexes should be staffed with ushers standing at the theatre door with boxes for guys to check their marbles into before watching this film, because nobody with a pair will remotely enjoy it.  I’m pretty sure the guy behind me lost his somewhere during the last third of the picture because he was frantically searching the floor for something when the lights finally came on.  The only thing that may be able to hold a guy’s attention is Sobieski, whose last theatrical release was Eyes Wide Shut (which was actually filmed about three years ago).  She’s slowly starting to grow out of her “Helen Hunt’s daughter” look and, in the meantime, has sprouted C-cups, which are prominently displayed throughout the film.

Earth was directed by Mark Piznarski, who is probably best known for his work on television dramas like My So-Called Life and NYPD Blue, as is cinematographer Michael D. O'Shea – not the beer, but the guy that shoots Once and Again.  The awful script was penned by Michael Seitzman (Farmer & Chase).  Earth is yet another early entry into my “Worst Films of 2000” list.  If theatres had windows, I would have jumped out.

1:48 - for mild adult language and some sexual content