Product Description

When an African American stand up comedian prematurely dies, the angels in heaven supply him with the body of an eldery white tycoon, so that he can return to earth.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 2-JAN-2007
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22428 in DVD
• Brand: ROCK,CHRIS
• Released on: 2001-07-10
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .30 pounds
• Running time: 87 minutes

Amazon.com
A tepid reworking of Warren Beatty's Heaven Can Wait (itself a remake of 1941's Here Comes Mr. Jordan), Down to Earth tries to mold comedian Chris Rock into an amiable romantic lead, but it softens the scathingly observant humor that made Rock a standup successor to Richard Pryor. Rock's aggressive style is bracingly expressed in a few good scenes, but through most of this movie--from the directors of American Pie--he struggles with dialogue that would barely pass muster in a low-rated sitcom. Edgy potential loses out to crowd-pleasing with the familiar body-switch formula: by way of premature death and bad timing on the part of heaven's Vegas-styled gatekeepers (played by Eugene Levy and Chazz Palminteri), Rock--as struggling comedian Lance Barton--is reincarnated as a 55-year-old white billionaire with a nasty reputation.

Adjusting (too easily) to his racial transition, Lance charms a hospital administrator (Regina King) who's amazed to see the selfish white billionaire turning into romantic philanthropist. This allows plenty of black/white-contrast jokes (did you ever see a fat, middle-aged white guy who's into hip-hop?), and Rock, who cowrote the screenplay, still manages to work some pointed politics into the movie's good-natured tone. It's guaranteed that some will find Down to Earth quite entertaining, but others will wonder how potent this comedy could have been if Rock had been more willing to confront the harsher truths that lurk beneath the humor. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

a romantic comedy
Comedian Lance Barton (Chris Rock) makes a fool of himself on stage one night and gets booed off. When biking home that night, he accidentally gets hit by a truck and is sent to heaven. In heaven, he gets the opportunity to go back `down to earth', only in someone else's body. To Lance, when he looks in the mirror, he sees himself, but when other people see him, he's Charles Wellington, the most richest man on earth, and the most unliked by everyone. Lance sees this and during his stay on earth, tries to make peace. One thing leads to another, and he gets the girl Sontee Jenkins (Regina King), who at the beginning was mad at Charles (Lance) for not caring about hospitals (or something along those lines). This film also stars Jennifer Coolidge as Charles Wellington's wife, and Wanda Sykes as the maid Wanda. Wanda was so funny in every scene she was in. So was Jennifer. Everything they did was so natural!

Down To Earth
Hilariously outrageous! One of Chris Rocks best! This movie sees him dying too early only to be brought back in an old white guys body! But here's the punch line, he's a comedian in the movie as well! I was in stitches, definately a must see if you like Chris Rock's dynamic style of comedy.

Out of Earth
If you want to pick one movie to see of 2001 It has got to be down to Earth! If you want to see Chris Rock do his best performance. If you want to laugh all day and night Its got to be this. this is one of the funniest movies since Big Daddy and Happy Gilmore. Please see this movie.