Bad But Good Film Of The Month: “Earth Girls Are Easy” (1988)
Earth Girls Are Easy (1988) is an amusing and quirky romantic comedy with a dash of musical theatre. Valerie (Geena Davis) is convincing herself that she’s found Mr. Right in a loveless engagement with a doctor (who is dead set on letting everyone know that he is indeed a doctor), that still wants to eat his cake too… no pun intended. Val does everything she can think of to try and spice up the doomed relationship but to no avail.
Enter our extra-terrestrials played by Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans, and Jeff Goldblum. They look like alternate colors of The Grinch (2000), also played by Jim Carrey, but have two hearts as opposed to the Grinch’s being too small. These heartily hair-laden aliens crash land their UFO into Valerie’s backyard pool and are taken into her care to learn about the human race. Val, much like us, got over the news of aliens being real in no time.
“Well I see split ends are universal. Lost in space with no conditioner, huh?”
After some major shaving and a makeover in an effort to get our furry friends to fit in, these three ETs have a night on the town which includes a way-too-long-that-it’s-comical dance-off scene where the winner gets the girl. The three aliens continue to tromp the town with their newfound sex appeal and reel in the ladies with little to no effort.
Valerie: “I didn’t want you to think Earth girls are easy.”
Mac: “What is ‘easy’?”
Valerie: “This is ‘easy’.” (kiss kiss)
As the aliens continue to learn more and more about humankind, the story continues to play on the ignorance of our three alien hotties where they find themselves accidentally holding up a convenience store, ruining a corvette, blowing up a gas station, and stealing the heart of our protagonist, Val, in the process. The former real-life Hollywood couple, Davis and Goldblum, realize that despite being an entirely different species, they may have found true love.
Now, thirty eight years after this movie was released, the possibility of a spaceship crash landing in a backyard pool may not be so outlandish after all. As the government continues to release bits and pieces of previously classified information about UFOs and aliens, the general public responds with little more than a shoulder shrug, largely due to being exposed to so many obvious other cover-ups, FAKE NEWS, and facades. “What else ya got” seems to be the typical attitude towards the little nibbles of allotted information we’re being permitted.
Earth Girls Are Easy is a movie of a simpler time where comedy could just be downright silly. Lower your movie bar, get a little goofy, and watch an unsuspectingly dorky flick from time to time. There’s enough bad and sad news in the world to last a lifetime and you’ve got a lifetime to deal with that, but you’ve got to be intentional about having a laugh. Earth Girls Are Easy offers that laugh for you.
Rating: 6.5/10
