Julien Temple’s science-fiction musical is silly, colourful and carried by Geena Davis’s comic warmth. The jokes are uneven and the story loses shape, but it is worth an evening if the prospect of musical aliens appeals.
Earth Girls Are Easy is a cheerful science-fiction romance with enough good jokes to excuse some slack storytelling. Julien Temple treats the arrival of aliens in Los Angeles as an opportunity for musical comedy, without burdening the visit with solemn wondering about humanity. The attraction is watching these newcomers encounter a culture already given to conspicuous behaviour. We recommend it with a warning that the silliness works much better in some scenes than others.
Geena Davis gives Valerie Gail enough warmth to keep the romance from disappearing beneath the noise. Her comic performance is alert without seeming pleased with itself, and she makes a useful centre for a film so easily distracted by its surroundings. We care about Valerie finding someone worth the trouble, which is a considerable advantage in a comedy this thinly plotted. The script gives her less to work with than the performance suggests.
Julie Brown is another reason to stay, playing Candy Pink and sharing the writing credit with Terrence E. McNally and Charlie Coffey. The sharpest lines have a casual nastiness that suits this setting, but the film seldom feels cruel towards the people delivering them. Not all the jokes land, and too many seem satisfied simply to announce that the situation is peculiar. The writing is more dependable when somebody says something foolish with complete assurance.
Dennis Gassner’s production design gives the Valley a hot-pastel brightness that makes the visitors’ confusion understandable: there is already plenty to take in before any science fiction enters. Oliver Stapleton photographs those colours with enough force to make the setting a sustained source of pleasure. It is deliberately tacky, and the film understands that making tackiness attractive takes care. The look holds our interest even when a gag has been allowed more room than it deserves.
We laughed at the confidence of ’Cause I’m a Blonde, which turns the celebration of being dim into an exuberant musical joke. The number gives the film a clear comic target and enough invention to keep finding fresh ways of approaching it. Nile Rodgers supplies the music, but the songs are not always mixed clearly enough, leaving some of the musical comedy less immediate than it should be. When so much depends on a number landing cleanly, that is a frustrating fault.
Richard Halsey’s editing cannot give the later stretches the direction they need. The film grows loose, with the feeling that another comic diversion is being offered because the story has run out of useful business. At 100 minutes, it is not an onerous commitment, but the uneven rhythm makes it feel longer than this material warrants. There are stretches where the enthusiasm of the presentation asks us to overlook how little the next joke adds.
The fish-out-of-water comedy works because Los Angeles gives the newcomers plenty of reasons to be baffled. The film does little to examine Valley life, and expecting sharp social satire will only make the thin patches more tiresome. Its pleasures are modest and, thanks to Geena Davis, warmer than the title might suggest. Expect a few stretches where the colours have to do the entertaining.
