Movie Two Hundred Eleven
The Man Who Fell to Earth is about an alien that travels here to transport water back to his dying planet.
Thomas Newton (David Bowie) is an alien that travels to Earth for water after a drought has ravaged his home planet. Since Newton looks just like a human, he blends in perfectly to society, and uses his advanced technology to file numerous patents and become extremely rich. With his amassed wealth, Newton needs a space to build a spaceship to transport water back to his home planet. He meets a young girl named Mary Lou (Candy Clark) and she teaches him Earth customs.
I would normally give a slightly longer synopsis of the film, but that’s about all I could surely surmise from The Man Who Fell to Earth. Calling the movie “trippy” is almost an understatement since at times I found it totally incoherent. Even at its most esoteric, I never found The Man Who Fell to Earth painful to watch, but it has more than a few moments that had me saying “wtf?”.
Since this was David Bowie’s big screen debut, it’s worth noting that his performance as a slightly robotic alien is fairly unsurprising. Oh, and in case you ever wanted to see naked David Bowie, this is your movie. Even though I barely had a grasp of the plot, I think a lot of The Man Who Fell to Earth actually has more to it. I would normally say it would be worth watching again to try to discern more of what was going on, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever be up for that.
The Man Who Fell Earth is not a bad movie, there is still a lot to like, especially given the cult status the film has achieved since its release. I have seen many many movies in my time, and The Man Who Fell to Earth is something unique, albeit very strange.
I give it 3 David Bowie taking out his contacts out of 5.
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Whoa, I’m in. I want to see naked David Bowie. At least I think I do.
It was a bit of a let down…
I’ve never seen this movie in its entirety and I don’t remember much about it. Doesn’t he sing in this movie?
Uh, maybe? I don’t think his character does but the soundtrack may be mostly him
It’s uniqueness is why I love it.
I don’t normally like movies because that are strange for strange sakes, but there is something about this one that endears me.
Even though it had me scratching my head for most of it, I’d be lying if I said there was something that kept my attention while watching it. My review doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it but I struggled keeping up with it, I guess.
If you want to see a really great movie David Bowie was involved with you should The Hunger. It’s a trippy vampire movie with Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve.
Nice review.
I saw The Hunger some time ago but wanted to give it another go after Tony Scott died. Thanks!
Andy,
I am a gigantic Bowie fan, but I have to agree with this review. I think most of Bowie’s movies are middle of the road affair, even the cult-like ones like The Hunger, with the exception of Labyrinth.
Le Clown
Labyrinth is most definitely the cream of the crop, but it’s a shame because his style is so unique one would think it would translate perfectly to film. It’s a shame, really.
Could that poster look less like Bowie?
Haha I know! I think it’s the nose…
Is this the one where the alien is leaving and decides before he does to tell all his friends that he’s been an alien the whole time?
He does make it known he’s an alien but I honestly don’t remember if anyone really cared…
What are you coordinating with Every 70’s Movie?!? He just reviewed this a day or so ago, too. The universe is aligning in the movie blog world, I guess
Haha no, it’s just weird movie watching coincidence!
This was one of those so called classics that I just never really got Andy. I should give it another try though as I seen it when I was about 14. Time for a reappraisal methinks.
It may work better another time around but I’m not totally if I’ll be revisiting this one again any time soon
based on your review, which i agree with, i think 3 out of 5 is too high.
Since I made it all the way through without breaking my attention from the film too much, it landed a 3 but after thinking back, I wouldn’t regret giving it a 2 either.
Maybe I need to give this another chance. I adore the director‘s work, but I couldn’t even get past the first 20 minutes.
I suppose it’s worth another shot but you’re pretty much in store for 2 more hours of whatever the first 20 minutes contains…
I like Roeg’s work too, but this was weird.
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