Four feet under

DOWN TO EARTH, now showing in East London.

I SHOULD have known, going into this one, that there'd have to be some allusion to that old favourite, Heaven Can Wait which starred Warren Beatty.

Turns out that Down To Earth is based on the aforementioned film. And it's actually not as bad as the trailer makes it out to be.

Just a touch boring -- it took great effort on my part not to snooze off.

Perhaps it was Chris Rock, who is a very funny guy but also one who finds himself extremely amusing.

Most lines are delivered with a grin, not unlike Monica in Friends.

If the guy finds himself so funny, he probably isn't worried that the audience is sitting there poker-faced.

It's a sweet film that won't get a laugh but just might encourage a few yawns.

Rock plays an amateur comic who gets hit by a truck and dies. Turns out it's not his time and so he's chugged back to earth to play a rich, white guy. And of course there's a girl involved and some conniving side-kicks.

To put it simply -- shades of bad Disney films back in the 80s.

The whole person-dying-getting-to-Heaven-only-to-be-sent-back-in-another-body thing has been done.

How many more of these little duds need to get made before Hollywood gets the picture that this concept is dead in the water?

Toni Müller