Here on Earth (2000)

Hey, if your a 14 year old girl, you will love this movie. When you get to be about 25, you'll see it again and look back and be amazed at how bad of a film it really is.

The most inane, postured, wooden, improbable, and down right cheesy love story on film since, well... "Love Story." This film, in fact, wants to be the "Love Story" of the new millennium. It would be easy to laugh at the film at times if it wasn't so hopelessly romantic and poetic and pretentious and pained.

Leads Chris Klein ("American Pie") and Leelee Sobieski ("Eyes Wide Shut"), who probably filmed this before they got to be huge upandcomers, seem to realize that they are in ridiculously deep doo-doo early on, so they just give up. Their acting is so wooden as to become marionette. Klein is called upon to puff-out his rippling pecs at every opportunity so, at least, the teenage girls and gay men in the audience will have something to distract them from the hopelessness of the plot and dialogue. Sobieski, seeming far too young to expose too much skin, tries to avoid the glare off Klein's oiled mammary glands as best she can. She often looks like a deer caught in headlights. And she's got a fake accent that would stop a truck. Trying to sound New England, she instead comes across as an nun finally breaking her vow of silence and trying to discover how to speak English after being silent for far too long.

Josh Hartnett plays Bubba Jr. Well, he might as well be called that. He is forced to wear the same stinking, ugly green baseball cap in every scene. No wonder he tries to kick Klein's ass at every seeming opportunity. He's trying to fight his way out of the frame.

Michael Sietzman is the man to blame. His script is ridiculous pap. God, is it awful. There is nothing redeeming about it. It's fake, pretentious, unimaginative bullshit. I HAVE to tell you this plot twist - I'm sorry, I don't like to spoil films but maybe - just maybe - this will make you want to go see it - so you can appreciate the horror that is the script. Sobieski is a former track star who hurt her leg, cracked her kneecap, while running hurdles. Suddenly, in the film's final end, her injury turns miraculously into cancer, which is going to kill her within a year. WHAT!?!? It's insane!

Director Mark Piznarski tries his best to make something happen here. But it's just hopeless. Piznarski has worked mainly on low-rated yet awesome TV shows like "My so-called Life" and "Relativity." I guess they expected him to make a silk purse out of this dog shit. (You thought I was going to say sow's ear? It ain't even that good).

"Here on Earth" made me cry at it's ending. God damn piece of crud!

Note:

Also with Annette O'Toole, Michael Rooker, and Bruce Greenwood.

Filmed in Minnesota.

The title is from a Robert Frost poem that is quoted endlessly throughout the film.

Soundtrack songs by Sixpence None the Richer, Devin, Tal Bachman, Beth Orton, Stereophonics, Tori Amos and others. Score by Andrea Morricone.

Report Card

Script: F

Acting: D+

Cinematography\Lighting: B-

Special Effects\Make Up: C+

Music: B+

Final Grade: F