Most critics respond warmly to Starman as a science-fiction romance, with praise centred on Jeff Bridges’s performance as an alien learning about human life. His gentle, childlike manner gives the film much of its appeal, and the favourable reviews find humour and feeling in the romantic story. Carpenter’s restrained handling of emotion also earns appreciation, although Bridges is the clearest point of agreement among the positive notices.
The reservations concern the writing: even some admirers find the plotting predictable or one-dimensional. The spread is fairly wide, with Variety judging the film only partly successful and finding that its use of effective borrowed models leaves it short of originality. Time Out is the strongest dissenter, dismissing the science-fiction love story as weak; the divide is chiefly over how much the performances and emotional appeal compensate for a familiar story.