"Heaven Can Wait", the 1978 film starring Warren Beatty, is a remake of 1941's "Here Comes Mr. Jordan". 2001's "Down to Earth" is another remake of the same movie. I saw the 1978 version in 2006 and again the following year, but still haven't seen the original, though I certainly still intend to. I rented this most recent film of the three without knowing it was a remake, but knowing that the starring role was played by Chris Rock. Not every film I've seen the comedian in is very good, but I have seen him in some funny ones, such as "Lethal Weapon 4" and "Dogma". Knowing that "Down to Earth" didn't have a very good reputation, I didn't think it would be funny, but found it to be an above average comedy, which I wasn't expecting.Lance Barton is a struggling comedian who unfortunately isn't very funny onstage, due to his stage fright. When his manager, Whitney Daniels, tells him that the Apollo Theater is about to have its final Amateur Night contest before closing down, Lance is determined to land a slot at this show. However, while riding his bike at night, he is distracted by a woman on the street and doesn't see an oncoming truck until it's too late! An angel named Mr. Keyes takes him up to heaven, but it turns that out it was not the comedian's time to die, so the head angel, Mr. King, takes him back to look for a different body to put him in, before anyone knows that the person is dead. After searching for a while, one of Lance's options is Charles Wellington, III, a billionaire tyrant who has just been murdered. Lance decides to temporarily take this body, until a more suitable body is found for him, and being a totally different person than what the businessman was before, this will obviously be an awkward experience! After the intro of this film, we see Chris Rock as Lance Barton going on a rant as if he's been mistaken for a bicycle messenger, even though he really IS one, and this part certainly did make me laugh. I thought maybe this would be the funniest part, and the only one that would actually make me laugh, but I was wrong. While most of the movie isn't exactly laugh-out-loud, there were other times when I laughed, including Lance in the body of Charles Wellington, III doing his stand-up routine, and two scenes with Lance/Charles rapping in public. I also frequently smiled, and rock puts on a decent enough comedic performance to help with the humour. I didn't find Jennifer Coolidge as Mrs. Wellington very amusing, and the romantic scenes with Lance (in Charles' body) and the Sontee Jenkins character played by Regina King may be slightly flawed, but I didn't find anything in the film painfully bad (it's not an extremely juvenile gross-out comedy, you can be sure about that), and the story held my interest.I know a lot of people strongly dislike/hate this movie, and that may include many Chris Rock fans, but despite all the criticism, I cannot give the film any rating lower than six out of ten. If you ask me, even a rating of seven just MIGHT not be excessively generous, even if most of those who have seen this particular 2001 comedy would strongly disagree! Also, coming from Paul and Chris Weitz, the directors of "American Pie" (a much more popular comedy, one which I think is sometimes funny but as a whole is quite overrated), I was expecting "Down to Earth" to be far more puerile and gross than it actually is! If you're a Chris Rock fan, I wouldn't expect this to be the funniest movie you'll ever see him in, but you could still find yourself laughing at least some of the gags (that is obviously NOT a guarantee). In my opinion, this film is definitely better than "Head of State", Rock's 2003 directorial debut.

I am a big fan of the film "Heaven Can Wait" and I also like Chris Rock (I thought), but this movie shows a strangely charmless side of the comedian when he really needs to be likable for this film to work.A misconceived idea from the get-go, "Down to Earth" at least would have worked comically if it had emulated that old Lily Tomlin/Steve Martin soul-switching comedy, "All of Me." In that movie the filmmakers understood that the comedy is to be found in seeing both sides of the soul switch. An old white comedian should have been cast as the body that Rock inhabits (Steve Martin or Chevy Chase)and the comedy would come from Rock doing what he always does and from seeing a white guy acting like Rock. Seeing Chris Rock essentially just be Chris Rock (he is a HORRIBLE, expressionless actor to boot) throws the comedy off-kilter. We rarely see the white body he inhabits and no humor is derived from his having to navigate his youthful self through a puffy, 53 year old body.It's like it was made by people who had no training in comedy before. Don't they know that filming someone saying funny things and cutting away to people laughing uproariously is a killer of comedy? Don't they know that comedies of misunderstandings and mistaken identity require consistent points of view? I started the film with high hopes but it grew dumber and dumber as it went along, blithely missing every opportunity for real humor. And don't get me started on the "romance". Regina King is wonderful but Rock is such a limited actor that she has nothing to play off of.By the time they got around to recreating the finale that is so touching in the Beatty film and so embarrassingly flat here, I had had it. A totally valueless film and probably not a very smart premise to start with.

How is this so highly rated? I love Chris Rock and that's why I went to see it but I was so disappointed, if it hadn't had been raining I would have walked out.Chris Rock doesn't seem to understand what the film is about. He is supposed to be playing a unfunny Black comedian reincarnated back into a white businessman who has just been bumped off by his wife and assistant. Even in a comedy you have to bring some sense of reality to make the humor work. His character doesn't change; he continues to act like a black guy, and not just any one but himself, Lance. Of course that's what you'd do…your given a second chance, for no good reason other than heaven making an administrative error, and you use that most precious gift to continue acting in the same dumb way you did before. Why does heaven give him a second chance other than the weak plot demands it? Lance doesn't do anything special to deserve it in his previous life; he just seems to take it for granted he is entitled to it. He never listens to anyone else or any advice, he just talks over everyone in his own self centered pursuit of a woman he glimpsed ten minutes ago.The point of view was all wrong, if it was supposed to be funny seeing a middle-aged white guy talking like a bad black comedian then that's what we should have seen on screen, not Rock except in very brief flashes. The reincarnated Lance shows no sense of having gone through the biggest change anyone can make other than changing sex. There is no awareness of his situation at all. We are supposed to despise the ruthless business man but Rock is an equally irritating replacement character with a different but just as selfish moronic single mindedness in getting the girl. The idea of a young attractive black girl being genuinely in love with a paunchy, balding and pretty ancient old man and kissing him passionately on screen would have just been stomach turning and I am at least glad Rock wouldn't let the cameras stray off him for that.Rock just didn't do anything to make it work. He created an unsympathetic selfish character who acted oblivious to his own situation and the reactions of everyone around him. But worse, he just wasn't funny, which let's face it most of us had gone to see.

I'm not saying that just as a Chris Rock fan, I'm saying this as a person who had low expectations going in to this movie and was proved wrong. The first flaw was it's everything-works-out ending that everybody saw coming. Flaw number two was I found that the chemistry between Regina King and Chris Rock seemed fake. Finally the acting in this movie was sub-par, with the best actor being Regina King and the worst being Mark Addy. but I saw past that flaw and saw a solid comedy. In a heads-up scenario, watch heaven can wait instead, it's better. So for all you Chris Rock fans out there, WATCH THIS MOVIE, you'll enjoy out. He has some good stand-up in this movie.Overall: 7 out of 10