And to think my all-time fav genre is sci-fi comedy! Here's a prime textbook case at how not to do one.<br /><br />It's a comedy with only a microscopic trace of humor, a sci-fi that really could just have easily been set in present-day Earth with no sci-fi elements at all, and an action film that contains only the standard D-grade action story setups and climaxes - and done at a lackadaisical by-the numbers contract-delivery pace.<br /><br />The only element that has the slight bit of remote interest is Randy Quaid as a rather quirky bodyguard robot. At least it's an interesting exercise at how to play a totally fanciful out-of-this world concept with no real-life equivalent. Yeah - the sort of role that your standard modern drama school graduate would be scratching their heads trying to get a grip on; and your academic drama scholar would be tearing their hair out till they looked like Homer Simpson over the fact "its not the type of role -or story for that matter- that has any credibility or truth to the human experience" (blah blah!) The fact that he is even a tiny bit watchable in that deserves a bit of a finger-clap - maybe.<br /><br />It could have been so much better - a few puppet-type aliens hanging around, a bit more showing of the light gravity bits, a dig at your serious Arthur C Clarke space drama like MOONDUST - anything at all to make this remotely interesting as a cinema experience - or even a storyline.<br /><br />But what we actually get is the real sort of movie that the conservative critics have accused all summer-style movies of being: brainless formulaic uncreative popcorn entertainment plying to the lowest common denominator that is churned out when the bloated Hollywood studio system is working on autopilot.<br /><br />Actually - this is the movie that makes the normal summer blockbuster movies look like works of literary genius. The critics should have been aware of the old saying: "Be careful what you wish for - you just might get it."