Martian Child: Adopt it or Not?

Martian Child is a movie directed by Menno Meyjes and stars John Cusack along with Joan Cusack, Oliver Platt, Amanda Peet, and Bobby Coleman. The story involves a science fiction book writing widower looking to adopt and finding himself paired up with a young boy who claims he comes from Mars.

In my critical adventures and movie watching I have found via response that John Cusack is a love him or hate him sort of actor: if you are a lover of him you'll sit through any movie of his and if you hate him you won't. I don't mean to leave out the third section of people that could care less one way or the other and just by mentioning them in this line I have included them and extended the word count of this review. Personally I think he is a fairly stable performer, but I wasn't rushing to see Martian Child.

Martian Child is a sappy drama and by sappy I mean oozing over with feel good or sympathetic PG rated dialog and scenarios. It is too cute in some places and awkward in others, with the depth of emotion hard to believe, except you must because movies can only be so long and you are supposed to be suspending realty at least a little bit. The acting by everyone is fine, with Amanda Peet shining in my opinion, an actress I'm not a huge fan of, but enjoyed her role here.

Martian Child is not my "type" of movie. So why did I watch it all? Curiosity got the better of me and I sat through the endlessly predictable and sappy plot to find out whether or not the boy was really from Mars or just mentally defective. I won't ruin the ending for you if you are one of those that enjoys a good, family feel good movie, but in retrospect I really didn't need to stick around for the end. Also, I think the romantic subplot should have been amped up a bit and play a larger role.