Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

I finally caught up to this film 30-plus years after its release - I've been eager to see it for all these years - I remember very well the positive critical buzz it got, back in the day, from Roger Ebert and especially Janet Maslin in the NY Times. I was heartened by a review here at IMDb that says something like "one of the best best science fiction movie ever made" - whoa, really? On par with "2001," "Star Wars," "Close Encounters"?? Well....no. Not at all. It's on the level of "Forbidden Planet" - worth watching if you've got some time to kill and/or if you're curious about the science fiction genre. I came away from the movie with exactly the same feeling I got from "The Fog" (another John Carpenter film) - cool premise, lots of potential, but ultimately air-headed with no deep satisfaction.The strong suit of Jeff Bridges is his affable American naturalness and accessibility; here, he is denied the chance to portray those things in favor of stiff alien chilliness and a modestly-charming goofiness that wears thin before their cross-country trip reaches Nebraska. He ends up merely showing off for Academy voters (they bought the shtick).Karen Allen is beautiful here - she's never been photographed better - those big eyes are amazing, every close-up is a masterpiece of lighting, composition, and makeup, and she wears jeans as well as any actress ever. But she's asked to carry way too much of the load. She's a good supporting actress but not really a leading lady, she hasn't got the likability chops. (In the wake of this film's mediocre box office performance, was she ever again asked to carry a big budget film?) Charles Martin Smith is OK but gets too much screen time (because Starman and Jenny don't have much to say to each other). He seems to spend an awful lot of time climbing out of helicopters and hiking across tarmacs. A little sprinkling of government agents goes a long way. The plot has too many holes. Starman can bring various lifeforms back from the dead but can't conjure up a way to keep Jenny awake? (I realize he needs to ration his little energy balls, but their stopping at the motel is just so obviously a plot device. Some better excuse needed to be found for their stop. (How about Starman has a need to watch TV to understand our culture? How about TV provides him with some sort of nourishment? How about he wants to observe the mating rituals of high school kids? Hardly any kids have been seen in the movie up to this point; surely he would need to understand age differences. So: they stop at the motel to buy Coke, he sees a young couple or two going into a room, he demands to know what's going on, Jenny thinks he's crazy but they get a room, she falls asleep, he watches TV and learns what he needs to learn from Burt and Deborah on the beach.)Would the government really institute a roadblock on a major freeway without posting many highway patrol cops telling drivers to slow down? (Answer: no possible way; the liability issues are massive.) Would the cops in the diner at the end of the film really not have a description of Starman?When the government team cracks open the alien spacecraft after much effort, would the whole team really gather around the capsule door as it opens, or might there be some cautious exploration first by a Haz Mat team? (Which could have been shown in the background.) Movie-goers of 1984 were almost certainly familiar with the radical steps taken by NASA in 1969 to protect Earth from possible space germs - these steps were one of the most marked and interesting things about the moon shot. To this day (2017) NASA has a full-time staff person in charge of protecting us from space microbes. The crater sequence at the end obviously cost a fortune, with more helicopters than "Apocalypse Now." But the sequence just kind of sits there, there's no electricity. (The musical score during the chopper attack might have evoked "Ride of the Valkyries" as a little nod to Coppola.) The film has its good moments of course; you can't spend $22 million and not generate at least a few such moments. The smoking-a-cigarette scene is hilarious. The railroad car sequence is sweet and charming; it could have been made truly witty if Starman had demonstrated superhuman sexual stamina (for example, Karen could check her watch at 5 p.m. and the next thing she knows it's 10 p.m., they're still doing it, and "Do That To Me One More Time" gets evoked in the score.) If you have a yen for a road picture and want really good entertainment, you have many choices in this splendid genre, including "The Sugarland Express," "Sullivan's Travels," "The Last Detail," "Thelma & Louise," "Y Tu Mama Tambien," "Borat," "Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed," "Almost Famous," "Pierrot le Fou," "The Motorcycle Diaries," "The Straight Story," "Journey to Italy," "Road to Morocco," "Mad Max: Fury Road," "Harry and Tonto," and "Easy Rider."

I expected a lot more out of this movie. For one thing it's John Carpenter. He obviously didn't write the script for this film but even though it was weak and trite I still felt that he could have done something more with it. For one thing the special effects are almost all CGI and bad CGI at that. Lovers of The Thing will be highly disappointed. The story is a simple romantic one at it's core and while I'm not completely adverse to that I can't say that this one ever really drew me in enough to care for what happened between the characters. The beginning especially felt really cobbled together, the story really lacks cohesiveness and it goes beyond believability. Not because it features aliens but that the things that happen don't even make sense within the sphere of plausible credibility within the story. The atmosphere is non-existent, the dialogue is weak and boring. It has some nice cinematography, as always with Carpenter, but it's not enough to save the movie.

Starman is an excellent and underrated SCI-FI-Fantasy-Romance that combines terrific direction,wonderful performances,an amazing score and great special effects. All of those elements make Starman a great film that is John Carpenter and Jeff Bridges at their best.Starman tells the story of am Alien,a Starman(Jeff Bridges)who's space ship has crash landed on the property of widow Jenny Heyden(Karen Allen)and takes the form of her dead husband. With the government on their trail the Starman and Jenny go on a road trip to take him to Arizona where Starman will be able to get back his planet. While on the trip Starman and Jenny get to know each other and fall in love.During his career,master Director John Carpenter has made five films dealing with Aliens with Horror,Action and SCI-FI,his funny feature film debut Dark Star(1974),the excellent and terrifying The Thing(1982),the brilliant and thrilling They Live(1988)and the underrated and entertaining Ghosts Of Mars(2001). In between those four films came Starman in 1984,a wonderful SCI-FI-Romance that was a modest success at the Box Office,earned an Academy Award nomination for Jeff Bridges,spawned a short lived television series and next to Big Trouble In Little China is Carpenter's lightest film that remains underrated and gives people a different side to Carpenter that wasn't seen before this film. Starman is a movie that is while giving viewers a familiar tale remains re-watchable mixing together elements of not only SCI-FI and Romance but also Road Movie,Fantasy,Adventure with a little bit of Humor that is beautiful and amazing and told in a large scale that grabs viewers from the moment you watch it. Starman greatly mixes together the genres SCI-FI and Romance pretty well. The SCI-FI elements are dazzling leaving you with thrills and awe from a visual standpoint showing from showing how the Starman lands on earth and how he uses his power for good not evil because Starman is one of the nicest Aliens in movie history. One of the main reasons Starman works is the focus on the relationship and love that develops between Starman and Jenny despite being Alien and human. The moments of dialog,interaction and romance between Starman and Jenny keeps the movie going wanting you to see where it's going to go even though the government is after both of them. The love and Romance feels real and genuine with a lot of heart that connects with viewers on an emotional level and you would want Starman and Jenny to be together forever. If you watched Carpenter's other films you should already know he's never been the most sentimental or Romantic filmmaker but he does a great job with the Love and Romance in the movie. As the journey on the road goes along Starman not only starts to fall in love with Jenny but starts to act more human doing things that regular people do and when we see the scenes with Starman being human it's funny as it is touching whether it's winning money on a Casino slot machine or trying to smoke a cigarettes. Starman also tells a character how he feels about the people on earth and one of the reasons he visited Earth. Some have compared Starman with Steven Spielberg's classic ET which came out two years before Starman some calling this movie ET for adults and while the two have similarities without a doubt both stand on their own. The ending of Starman is terrific,beautiful and matches the tone of the movie leaving viewers with optimism and hope. An amazing conclusion.The cast is great. Jeff Bridges is excellent and at his best as Starman,with Bridges being sweet and amusing. Karen Allen is wonderful and beautiful as Jenny Hayden,Starman's love interest. Charles Martin Smith is terrific as Mark Sherman,a scientist. Richard Jaeckel is great as George Fox,a National Security Director. George 'Buck' Flower(Cook),Dirk Blocker(Cop#1),M.C Gainey(Cop#2)and Ted White(Deer Hunter)give good performances as well;.The direction by John Carpenter is amazing,with Carpenter always moving the camera and bringing a great flare and style to the film. Terrific direction,Carpenter.The score by Jack Nlitzsche is fantastic,beautiful and awe-inspiring matching the movie perfectly. Fantastic score,Niezche.The Special Practical and Visual Effects are stunning and truly add to the film. Great special effects.In final word,if you love John Carpenter,Jeff Bridges,SCI-FI,Romance or Fantasy,I highly suggest you see Starman,an excellent,underrated SCI-FI-Romance-Fantasy that you will never forget. Highly Recommended. 10/10.

John Carpenter's STARMAN is a sympathetic star-crossed romance between an alien aka. Starman (Bridges) and an earth woman Jenny (Allen), a rare item in his otherwise horror and action packed works, it is my second film from him, after the disappointingly topsy-turvy BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986, 5/10). First of all, it is a cruel joke on our earthlings, we set off a welcome message into the outer space, and some unspecified highly-intelligent species responses by sending an explorer to our planet, however, the first thing humans do is shooting the vehicles down, then hunting down the e.t. in order to put him on the operation table for dissection. But don't worry, as annoying as the authoritarian NSA chief and the military ostentation and extravagance, things will not descend to that ground. Jenny is recently widowed and still overindulges in the then-sweet-but-now-tormenting memories of his dead husband Scott, so the intrusion of Starman who regenerates himself into a human form of Scott through his hair kept in Jenny's photo album actually gives an impossible chance for Jenny to fall in love with Scott again, thus despite the initial terror to witness the metamorphosis of an unearthly creature turning into Scott, Jenny accepts him almost instantly as subconsciously she knows that her dream comes true in a supernatural version. The pair drives across the country to reach the picking-up location in Arizona, where a mother-ship will take Starman back as it has planned.En route, the affecting binding progress between them takes a lion's share of the film and romance burgeons inevitably and a nice job done by generously allowing Starman some time to learn in his new form as a male human in this three-day span, the film never intend to be a taut action piece or a CGI-ridden arena for Starman to show off his superpower other than when the plot requires, emotion always comes first, even poetically, which one might find it unexpectedly against Carpenter's grain, Jenny and Starman are each other's savior, once they builds the trust and affections, they are inseparable. As corny as that he resuscitates her from death, cures her infertility and gives her a baby boy, whereas she has the relentless will power to bring him to the appointed venue, to eventually save his life, Carpenter and his two leads pull it off satisfactorily. Bridges garners a surprising Oscar-nomination here, he demonstrates a primitive method as a newcomer habituating, mimicking and grasping human behavior, impressively carries on his otherworldliness through the journey with advanced nuances in gesticulation and language capacity. Allen brings about a force of momentum in her more mundane part, overwhelmed by the frisson of regaining and losing again of her true love, she and Bridges share many intimately heartfelt moments in this fanciful tall-tale, its CGI effects inescapably seem dated, but the kernel of its message - to evoke the basic humanity within us, leaves viewers a somewhat palatable taste which injects the movie a vital strength to be finely appreciated.