eliotkeith This is a film for the experienced cinephile. An average audience will probably get bored. David Bowie is an alien who lands on earth in search of water. This was the legendary singer's first starring role and he more than owns the role of a strange human trying to mix with humans. The surreal imagery by noted director Nicholas Roeg is a highlight and although the film wasn't a big hit either critically or commercially back when it was released, it has a huge following today. If you are a fan of science fiction you should check this out.

jc-osms I like Nicolas Roeg's films although I don't claim to always "get" or enjoy every minute of them. They're always fantastically shot in a crisp, realistic style, he often pushes back the boundaries, particularly with the censors, and they frequently have scenes which stick long in the memory. However, they often seem to have just as many longueurs, with off-beat characters and non-linear narratives. Maybe I'm the problem...Anyway David Bowie here plays a part which seemed to haunt him for years to come, in the aftermath of the film alone, he used images from the movie for two of his album covers, a 12-inch single sleeve while it also seems to inspire tracks on his "Station To Station", "Low" and "Scary Monsters" albums not to mention the famous "Ashes To Ashes" video. Bowie was at an artistic peak musically although off stage he was hopelessly hooked on cocaine, in fact just watch the contemporary BBC Arena documentary on him, "Cracked Actor" and he looks here as if he's just walked on-set from there. So can he act then...?Well if there was one part he was born to play, it was this one, the alien misfit who conquers the world, but to be honest, while he certainly has a presence, you wouldn't say he was extended much. Looks great though.The film stop-starts its way on his space invader odyssey, as he leaves his family life on Mars (or wherever it is) to start inventing items which quickly become society's new fashion must-haves. He picks up, (or rather she does him) an adoring if simplistic hotel chambermaid and garners a back-up team to make him a vast fortune, his target being to amass enough funds to build a spaceship to take him back home. But something happens on his way to heaven as unsurprisingly, he's abducted by government officials, where he's subjected to excruciating tests which wouldn't be out of place in an animal cruelty lab. Resistance however is futile and the mysterious Mr Newton by the end is a washed-up drunk, still resigning himself to his earth bound fate. In one of the film's most telling lines, he forgives his captor-torturer, as he admits his own race would gave treated a visiting earthling in the exact same way.There's solid back-up to Bowie's central role with a variety of convincingly portrayed stock characters. Roeg pushes the permissive button pretty far here with more than a smattering of nudity in the sex scenes, not ignoring the fact that males frequently get naked too when being intimate. I would still say there were too many scenes which for me played like Bowie's own cut-up method for lyrics at around this time, by which I mean I found them puzzling, strange and unconnected. And why no Bowie soundtrack?Still, an interesting if confounding movie, as strangely addictive in its way as television is to Newton.

michaelgfalk This is a weird movie, and compelling. David Bowie stars as himself: an alien, fallen to earth, whose moral vision is out of kilter with the humans around him. He is superb. His quietness, timing, movements, and thin otherworldly look are mesmerising. And despite his moral strangeness, he is sympathetic. He is one of the strangest characters in fiction: almost impossible to relate to, and yet constantly evoking our pity.The plot moves in fits and starts. Some moments stretch forever, and then suddenly it races ahead, and we find the same characters thrown together in new relationships. Things seem to be developing in a certain direction, and then suddenly turn and render what went before irrelevant. The whole movie is mysterious. Events are unexplained. Characters' motivations are cryptic. But it is never boring, because it is so suspenseful.It is a poetic movie. Often two or three scenes take place at once, and are spliced with the television Bowie is watching or the things he sees and imagines. Strange images come together. We get a sense of how his mind works, though it is often ambiguous whether all the different things we see are in his mind, or are simply coincidences.I loved this movie, but I found aspects of it less compelling. A subplot develops about the finances of the company Bowie founds, World Enterprises. Like the rest of the film, this subplot is weird, but unlike the rest, it doesn't work. The characters involved are ciphers. Thinking about it the next day, I can begin to see some connections between the subplot and the rest of the movie, but I still feel it was jarring and ill- managed.

noblecarbon The premise shows promise, but time and time again the plot is incoherent, jumping from scene to scene without really introducing who is there, what are they doing, and why. Not only are most of their motivations clouded in strange cinematic shots including hallucinatory flashbacks/time travel and time gaps, the story suffers from what seems to be a lack of direction or loss of critical information. The addition of numerous sex scenes adds little to the plot ("Sex sells, Morty") and would present itself no worse without them. (One of the minor characters has multiple sex scenes to show their lifestyle, which ultimately detracts from the main story.) As a fan of science fiction, I am disappointed, though I can see the allure to non-sober viewers.