Clearly conceived as an affectionate homage to E.T., CJ7, the latest aggressively digital comedy from Hong Kong superstar Chow (Shaolin Soccer, Kung Fu Hustle), so slavishly follows Spielberg’s boy-and-his-alien template that it sometimes threatens to turn into a subtitled replica of the forgotten late-’80s knockoff Mac and Me. Ever the populist, Chow even goes so far as to literalize the already blatant alien = dog analogy, serving up a tiny, fluffy space creature that looks something like a Pomeranian crossed with a plastic piggy bank. Does it get wasted and wreak havoc? Does it have magical healing powers? Does it wanna go home? The cute little bugger somehow fails to manufacture a homemade intergalactic smart-phone out of cannibalized Wii and iPod parts, but that’s the only real omission of note.
As usual, Chow, a splendid comic actor, also appears in the cast, playing the barely employed laborer dad of spunky pre-teen boy Dicky. (Incredibly, Dicky is played by a little girl, Xu Jiao. I didn’t know this detail in advance and never so much as suspected—she’s that convincing.) Unable to afford the new “CJ1” toy his son covets, Dad instead presents the kid with an odd ball-shaped gizmo he found at the junkyard, unaware that it’s an extraterrestrial in disguise. Dubbed “CJ7,” this amazing critter quickly solves all of Dicky’s problems at school—beating up the bullies who’ve been tormenting him, feeding him the answers to test questions, etc. Problem is, it only does so in Dicky’s fevered imagination. In reality, what it mostly does is poop.
Had Chow been willing to go all the way with this hilarious subversion of the magical-alien paradigm, CJ7 might have been a minor classic. Alas, he ultimately schmaltzes out, turning the creature into a saccharine savior-martyr and the movie itself into a misshapen mess. Still, now that Joe Dante’s career is more or less dead, nobody else is exploring this particular brand of cartoon-inspired slapstick; the movie’s biggest belly laughs arise when Dicky’s dad, who still thinks CJ7 is a toy, demonstrates its durability to his horrified son by stretching, squeezing and twisting it like saltwater taffy. Not since Daffy Duck has anything been so memorably abused.
CJ7
***
Stephen Chow, Xu Jiao, Kitty Zhang Yuqi
Directed by Stephen Chow
Rated PG