Steven Mills (Dan Aykroyd) is searching for alien intelligence with his brother Ron Mills (Jon Lovitz). He has his adoring 13 year old daughter Jessie (Alyson Hannigan). He sends out a signal to another galaxy which gets him fired. It also attracts sexy alien Celeste Martin (Kim Basinger) sent to investigate the source of the signal.

Basinger is trying to be wacky. It doesn't always work and Aykroyd's straight man isn't great either. Some of it is funny but a lot of this is awkwardly not funny. Something occurs to me at the start of the third act. This should have been a kids movie with Alyson Hannigan as the lead. She's paired up with Seth Green, pre-Buffy. They would investigate her suspicious new stepmother. That's the better movie.

MY STEPMOTHER IS AN ALIEN is one of those films with a great title but little in the way of a real plot to go with it. It's a typical lame '80s comedy in which a bunch of dated aliens beam down on Earth and one of them adopts the rather unlikely form of Kim Basinger in order to infiltrate mankind's society. What follows is an endless barrage of dated jokes, unfunny jokes, and just plain weirdness.

I'll admit from the outset to not being a fan of Basinger, although she's well cast as an alien character here; there's always been something a bit weird about her, after all. Dan Aykroyd is stuck in the 'everyman hero' type role and can do little with it, although there's novelty value that arises from seeing future stars like Alyson Hannigan, Seth Green, and Juliette Lewis when they were but children.

The special effects in the film have dated, not to mention the fashions and hairstyles, and overall it only raised a few chuckles along the way. Overall I think the '80s wave of alien comedies (such as MORONS FROM OUTER SPACE and EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY) was a disappointing one, an assembly of movies that did little to progress either the sci-fi or comedy genres in any way.

I mainly heard of this film because of the leading star, and the fact that this was the first film to feature body double Shelley Michelle, any nudity was cut for pre-watershed TV, but never mind. Anyway, basically slob widower Dr. Steven Mills (Dan Aykroyd) accidentally sends a great surge of energy into outer space, threatening the existence and life on another planet. This other planet has dispatched one of the agents, disguised as a human, named Celeste Martin (Kim Basinger),to sort things out, along with her superior, her talking handbag (voiced by Ann Prentiss). Steven is indeed attracted by Celeste, and with her little knowledge of Earth stuff, he, and in secret the bag, teach her everything she should know, Steven obviously finds her funny and fascinating. Eventually they do get to sex, and Celeste over time (and she was only meant to stay for 24 hours) grows to like Earth. Then there's the marriage, and until she reveals it herself, Steven's daughter Jessie (introducing young American Pie's Alyson Hannigan) was the only person that knew Celeste was an alien, so when Steven does find out, he realises the reason she's there, and helps her. In the end, the bag is destroyed, and instead of Celeste going home and telling about everything Earthy, they take Steven's womanising brother Ron (Jon Lovitz),more specifically because of the alien women taking him, so a happy ending, Ron gets endless women, and Steven, Celeste and Jessie become a proper family. Also starring Joseph Maher as Dr. Lucas Budlong, Seth Green as Fred Glass, Wesley Mann as Grady, Adrian Sparks as Dr. Morosini, Juliette Lewis as Lexie and Harry Shearer as the voice of Carl Sagan. I can agree (with the critics) it is not the story that is important, it is Basinger's charming E.T. character, and there are some good giggly moments, my favourite and most hilarious being Celeste learning to kiss using clips from well known media. Worth watching!