I like Chris Rock. I mean, I don’t know Chris Rock, but his brand of humor, his comedic style, appeals to me. I figure a lot of other people “like” Chris Rock too. I suspect that may be the only reason there will be fannies in the theatre seats for this new movie. Sadly, it’s not a good enough one.

You may know by now “Down To Earth” is sort of a remake of “Heaven Can Wait”. That’s the story of a guy who gets taken off to heaven before his time, so to make up for it he gets to inhabit the body of someone who has just died and carry on some kind of life. In “Heaven Can Wait”, Warren Beatty was a football star. In “Down To Earth”, Chris Rock is a bike messenger trying to break through as a stand-up comic. The character Rock plays is named Lance Barton. He comes “back” as Charles Wellington, a rich white guy. He’s given some choices and chooses Wellington not just because he’s rich, but because an attractive woman has just handcuffed herself inside Wellington’s residence. He wants the girl. I’ll skip explaining the handcuff thing if you promise you’ll skip seeing this movie.

Where to begin with what’s wrong with “Down To Earth”? For starters, I guess the title is sort of a spin on “getting down”, since the black guy has now taken over the old fuddy-duddy rich white guy’s body and he’s gonna “get down”. This joke is played over and over as Rock starts using the language of the ‘hood and bopping to the hip-hop sound while in Wellington’s body. Now here’s the problem-on screen, we don’t see an old white guy getting’ down. We see Chris Rock. Yeah, there are occasional glimpses of some old white guy but mostly we see Chris Rock. Plus, we never got to see the old rich white guy before he died, so we don’t know how crazy this looks to people who know him. One big joke lost there.

In “Heaven Can Wait”, the movie used some humor to back a love story about two souls trying to find each other no matter what bodies they occupy. The love story dominated and people took to that movie. In “Down To Earth”, the humor is more front and center and the love story takes a back seat. Well, let me tell you about the humor and you’ll know just how much of a lost cause this all is. Here’s a couple of samples. When Rock first ascends to heaven a guy tries to “cut the line” and one of the angels says, “go to hell”. Later, Rock is told about a hospital that may close and his response is “ I know that hospital, my uncle went there. He needed a new liver. They sent him to the supermarket”. Are you up off the floor yet after all that laughter? He actually used that joke twice in this movie. What is this, vaudeville?

Complicating things, for the worse, are four really awful characters. Two of them are the angels, or God’s assistants, sent to sort out the Lance Barton matter. Not funny. The jokes are badly written, badly delivered. It was painful. Like a bad “Saturday Night Live” sketch when it’s clear everyone is reading the teleprompter or cue cards and can’t wait for this thing to be over. Only this movie is not ten minutes long like a sketch. The other two characters are the old rich guy’s wife and his male secretary. They’re lovers and would like to kill off the old man. Again, painful. They stumble around, play off that old “insult each other till you’re turned on “ joke, and it’s bad, so bad. Somebody must have figured this out because eventually they’re not in any scenes together.

What’s left then is the love story between Lance and the girl who handcuffed herself (remember her?) and that’s a big zero too. Regina King plays the woman and I have to say it, she can’t act. As for Chris Rock as the lover boy type, better stick to comedy. Hey, I like the guy , remember? That’s evident too as the only chuckles in this movie come when Rock goes off on a few riffs and rants. Like when he tells the heckler in the crowd,” Hey, do I come to your job and hassle you? No, you don’t see me knocking the squeegee out of you hand.” Now that’s funny. I’m certain the only times I laughed at this movie were lines Rock adlibbed. I read in an interview that Rock was excited to make this movie after seeing “Heaven Can Wait”. He thought he could improve on it big time. Sorry Chris. To put it your way, “Down To Earth” is one sorry ass movie. I give it a “2” on my 1 to 10 scale.