I've mellowed out a lot in my opinions about movies over the past couple of decades; Even if it doesn't sound like it, these days I'm way more likely to shrug off a film's problems and look for the fun or something interesting, if the film allows for it.
The Man From Earth is an interesting one, though, because it managed to consistently annoy me while having its heart firmly in the right place and doing things I appreciate. For starters, it's pointedly a "thinking person's sci fi" movie - no action, no spectacle, basically just one long conversation between some erudite, supposedly companionable people.
The premise is that as a university professor (David Lee Smith) is getting ready to skip town, a group of colleagues (Tony Todd, John Billingsley, Ellen Crawford, Annika Peterson, and William Katt - the Last American Hero himself, playing a history professor with a leather jacket and a soul patch!) come to give him an impromptu going away party. As the evening unspools, the protagonist lets slip that he's functionally immortal, and has been walking the earth since before the last Ice Age; The rest of the day is spent with the bemused guests alternating between asking good-natured questions and trying to figure out if it's an elaborate prank. Later, a psychologist (Richard Riehle) is called in to join in the fun.
What's not to love?
Well, the script, for one - credited to one Jerome Bixby, a "legendary Sci Fi author" (of short stories, none of which I've read) who's probably more famous for scripting the great It! The Terror From Beyond Space, plus a handful of Star Trek episodes and It's a Good Life from The Twilight Zone.
Bixby made his name in the fifties and sixties, and it really, really shows; The film's central conversation does cover some good points - mainly about how hard it is for an individual to form an accurate image of a larger picture, and it's moderately enjoyable, but mostly it feels stilted, a little outdated and... annoyingly quaint, is maybe the best way I can describe it.
The weight these people assign to the protagonist's word is outsized. They are shocked! They are amazed! They react to his declarations as an affront to good sense and property, while obviously being deeply affected! I'm exaggerating, of course, but not that much. Characterization, which is indispensable in what's essentially a chamber piece, is extremely scattershot, and everyone serves as fairly transparent mouth pieces for whatever idea the author is pursuing. An author, I should add, firmly rooted in the golden age of sci fi- an era notorious for giving very little importance to people's inner lives*.
Given all that, it's hard to fault the actors for failing to breathe lives into their roles. Smith is actually pretty good as the protagonist, whom he plays with a quiet, self-effacing charm. The great, late Tony Todd steals the show as a characteristically (for Todd) soulful professor. Everyone else... oof. Katt is kind of enjoyable as a douchebaggy professor who drags a student date (Alexis Thorpe) to the party** - only kind of enjoyable, though, mostly he's just there as an unreasonable foil and little else. The rest of the cast consists of TV actors, and they fail to provide any of the naturalism or charisma that the film sorely needs. Oh, and poor Peterson's sole function is to be in love with the protagonist and completely, utterly support him no matter what. I have no idea if she's any good because she's completely wasted -both as an actress and as a character. At least she looks really nice.
So all that's left is the ideas the film discusses... and aside from some meditations on subjectivity, they're pretty basic and on-the-nose; Dorm-room philosophy. There's a silly, kind of fun theological bombshell dropped at one point (directly stolen from a book by Michael Moorcock), but it only throws dirt on Christianity - Buddhism, as usual, gets off scott-free.
The form of the debate is pretty poor, as well. The professors make for poor inquisitors: it seems to me that proving the guy is telling the truth would be as easy as "write this paragraph that I'm going to dictate in every language you know", but they insist in throwing slowballs and being in (sometimes reluctant, but usually vocal) awe of him instead.
Director Richard Schenkman actually has a pretty fun, trashy resumé (he's directed entries in both the Angel and I Spit in Your Grave series!) but this is, by form and necessity, an extremely subdued film. There's some attempt to give the film some variation - a couple of walks outside the cabin, lots of shuffling around, some movers taking stuff away, giving the film's one set some variety - but this is a very low budget production... as will become immediately clear by the extremely TV Movie title credits.
I think, given how much I like the idea of the film, and its built-in cosiness, I might have still given it a pass even with all the ways it falls short. But in a desperate attempt to end the film with an exclamation sign, there's an event so idiotic, so contrived, that it completely ruined any goodwill that had been accrued up to that point, and made all of the failings that much more glaring.
The film ends with a trailer for a sequel that looks so awful it made me morbidly curious; But a friend confirms that yes, it is exactly as awful as it looks, and completely devoid of any interest. Thanks Matt, your sacrifice was not in vain.
*: All of which makes me think this clearly needed to have been written by a new wave author; Imagine what Roger Zelazny (who wrote his share about immortals) or Rob Silverberg could have done with it.
**: No one even raises an eyebrow.
