Review of Morons from Outer Space (1985) by Geoff H — 19 Jun 2012

Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones went from Not The Nine O'Clock News to getting their own show on the BBC, but when Thorn EMI offered them their own film, they jumped at the chance to do it. Getting Mike Hodges (Get Carter and Flash Gordon) to direct it, unfortunately, it lacks a good script, because it's stars weren't that much cop at writing.

Pity really. It has 4 human like aliens Bernard (Smith), Sandra (Joanne Pearce), Desmond (Jimmy Nail), and Julian (Paul Bown), travelling through space on their ship and crash landing on Earth, on the M1.

However, Bernard becomes separated from the group and ends up somewhere in America. Meanwhile, the aliens are taken in by Commander Grenville Matteson (Dinsdale Landen), who conducts tests on them, but is taken over by CIA Col.

Raymond Laribee (James Sikking), the aliens escape, and are taken in by rookie reporter Graham Sweetley (Griff Rhys Jones), who becomes their manager and makes them rich and successful. However, when Bernard ends up in a mental asylum, he plans to escape to get to a massive concert they're at in New York, but he's not very intelligent.

It had all the right ingredients for a funny film, but a lot of the jokes you've seen elsewhere before, there's bad taste jokes galore and it's just dumb. It didn't help that the producers and the BBFC cut 6 minutes out to make it more family friendly, with a bit more of a savage bite, it could have worked.