My Stepmother Is an Alien

PG-13

Released Dec 3, 1988

1 hr. 48 min.

Sci-Fi

List

20%

25 Reviews

Tomatometer

30%

25,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Trying to rescue her home planet from destruction, a gorgeous extraterrestrial named Celeste (Kim Basinger) arrives on Earth and begins her scientific research. She woos quirky scientist Dr. Steve Mills (Dan Aykroyd), a widower with a young daughter (Alyson Hannigan). Before long, Celeste finds herself in love with Steve and her new life on Earth, where she experiences true intimacy for the first time. But when she loses sight of her mission, she begins to question where she belongs.

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Critics Consensus

Kim Basinger is otherworldly funny in this harebrained sci-fi rom com, but she still can't save My Stepmother is an Alien from alienating intelligent earthlings.

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N.A.

As you can read here, there're so many s*itty reviewers here! The movie is amazing! The 80's were AMAZING !!!

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/25/24

Full Review

Diana M

I saw this movie first when I was a teenager and still like watching it when I need something lighthearted. It's silly but a fun movie.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/17/24

Full Review

Steve D

I have no idea who the audience was and the acting is pure cheese.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

09/04/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Oh man! Was this always soo corny? Feels like another sitcom reject. I mean, it's got some fun moments for a kids movie, but there is far too much adult humor to make any sense of the balance here...

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

07/14/22

Full Review

Audience Member

Back when this site was young, I wrote something called "Kim Basinger: Professional idiocy, circa 1987 and 1988" in which I wondered why the very capable Basinger resigned herself to playing morons in movies like Blind Date and this movie. But man — I watched this tonight and maybe I was in the right mood, but when Basinger is giggling and imitating Jimmy Durante? That's some prime romantic comedy material and it made my heart sing. Widowed astronomer Steve Mills (Dan Aykroyd) screws up and causes a gravitational disruption in deep space, sending a race of hyper-advanced alien lifeforms to investigate. That would be Celeste (Basinger), who wins over the scientist in a day. But even though she's been sent to get his research, she falls for him. The film's screenplay was written by Herschel Weingrod, Timothy Harris (Weingrod and Harris wrote Trading Places, Twins, Kindergarten Cop and Space Jam together) and Jonathan Reynolds based on an earlier script by Jerico Stone, who originally pitched the film to Paramount Pictures as a drama called They're Coming that would serve as an allegory about child abuse. But hey, it gets weirder than that. Jerico would tell the Los Angeles Times that as a kid in Brooklyn, he had a friend — that he pretended to be a superhero with and they called each other the Black Jacks — showed up badly beaten. "He said we couldn't do anything to stop his father because he was an alien. And he said he couldn't see me again–and he never did." This would happen to him again years later, when he made friends in Los Angeles with another street kid who had a similar story. Jerico said he followed him to a supermarket parking lot, where the boy hopped into an abandoned car. "It didn't have any wheels and its windows were spray-painted black," Jerico recalled. "I rushed up and started kicking the car when the door opened and it was an alien. It wasn't a man. It wasn't a person. It looked so strange I couldn't even describe it. I just froze. The next thing I knew this huge hand leaped out and dug into my stomach, grabbing a hold of my spine. The pain was so intense I just collapsed to the ground. The alien creature stood over me and said, very gently, "Sorry, Black Jack." Then the car started to shimmer, very brightly, and I blacked out from the pain. When I came to, the car — and any traces of it — was gone." The next paragraph of this story sends me into fits of ecstatic happiness: Not long afterwards, Jerico had a chance meeting with Orson Welles: "I cornered him walking into Ma Maison and he told me, ‘My boy, "The War of the Worlds" was just a dress rehearsal." Stone would also write the movie Matinee. The film debut of Juliette Lewis, as well as the first time Alyson Hannigan and Seth Green would pair up, My Stepmother is an Alien is silly fun that I probably thought too much about the first time I wrote about it. Also, if you're making a Letterboxd list of movies where Aykroyd has supernatural sex and then gets a weird smile on his face, you can add this one.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/06/23

Full Review

Tom M

Dumb Story ? Yes. Bad Acting ? Absolutely ! Guilty 80's pleasure ? Hell Yeah !

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/05/21

Full Review

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Richard Benjamin

Director

Dan Aykroyd

Steven Mills

Kim Basinger

Celeste Martin

Jon Lovitz

Ron Mills

Alyson Hannigan

Jessie Mills

Joseph Maher

Lucas Budlong

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Anton Bitel

Little White Lies

interesting as a time capsule of a rather conservative brand of '80s excess, and as a gender-switched companion piece to Earth Girls Are Easy. But on its own merits, it is what it is: a committee-written, dumb-assed mess, less amusing than alienating

Dec 13, 2021

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Variety Staff

Variety

A failed attempt to mix many of the film genres associated with the 'alien' idea into a sprightly romp.

Mar 26, 2009

Full Review

Colette Maude

Time Out

The film offers several entertaining sequences, but Splash it ain't, for while that film took a similar scenario and beautifully conveyed romantic notions of innocence, this is marred by cruel and juvenile gags.

Jun 24, 2006

Full Review

David Nusair

Reel Film Reviews

...an exceedingly hit-and-miss comedy that fares best in its affable and easygoing opening stretch...

Rated: 2/4

Apr 28, 2022

Full Review

Douglas Davidson

Elements of Madness

The science in the film may be imaginary, the premise ridiculous, the escalation toward the conclusion absurdly exponential, yet it's difficult to not be charmed by it. In the parlance of the modern era, the film understood the assignment.

Jan 3, 2022

Full Review

Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

A limp comedy that could easily have been tagged E.T. The Extremely Tedious.

Rated: 2/4

Dec 26, 2021

Full Review

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Synopsis

Trying to rescue her home planet from destruction, a gorgeous extraterrestrial named Celeste (Kim Basinger) arrives on Earth and begins her scientific research. She woos quirky scientist Dr. Steve Mills (Dan Aykroyd), a widower with a young daughter (Alyson Hannigan). Before long, Celeste finds herself in love with Steve and her new life on Earth, where she experiences true intimacy for the first time. But when she loses sight of her mission, she begins to question where she belongs.

Director: Richard Benjamin
Executive Producer: Art Levinson, Laurence Mark, Jerry Weintraub
Screenwriter: Herschel Weingrod, Timothy Hyde Harris, Jonathan Reynolds
Production Co: Weintraub Entertainment Group
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Sci-Fi
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Dec 3, 1988, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Apr 16, 2012
Box Office (Gross USA): $12.9M
Sound Mix: Surround

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