Comedy and Sci-fi have never been happy bedfellows. Han Solo may have been a dab hand at a passing quip and E.T. could gurgle on cue, but on the whole, sci-fi has always taken itself a bit seriously ( there’s hardly a slew of choice rib-ticklers in the frosty dystopias of Blade Runner or Alien) .
It takes the bona fide black comic arts of Addams Family-helmer Sonnenfeld, and a quite miraculously fabulous teaming of Tommy Lee Jones with Will Smith to buck the trend.