‘Gigolo’ Review: Painfully Pointless Remake

Showtime got a little bit lucky with The Man Who Fell to Earth. The sci-fi drama took a title that means very little to modern audiences and a story that didn’t really require extending into a new era, but creators Jenny Lumet and Alex Kurtzman had a specific and contemporary tale they wanted to tell — and, in Chiwetel Ejiofor, a fully committed leading man giving a wild, hilarious, soulful central performance.

Perhaps owing to the arbitrary attempt to build around the title of a 1976 film (and a 1963 novel), The Man Who Fell to Earth doesn’t appear to have generated any buzz at all and Ejiofor didn’t even crack the outer edge of the Emmy conversation.