Metacritic reviews

The movie finds countless opportunities for humorous scenes, most of them with a quiet little bite, a way of causing us to look at our society.

Thankfully a sharp cast and goofy wit mostly keep the movie light on its feet.

Buoyed by Morton's sensitive performance, the film proceeds as a series of vignettes, some of them unforgettable.

The superhero stuff is often unintentionally silly, but again, Sayles shapes a catchy premise into a subtler piece, using Morton's "alien" status as a way of asking who deserves to be called an outsider in a country born of outsiders.

The Brother from Another Planet profoundly illustrates, modern life is more unfair than it needs to be….It may not be the perfect John Sayles film, the perfect science fiction movie or the perfect film about black life — but it manages to seamlessly mix wit, slapstick, poignancy and politics.

The Brother From Another Planet, set in major part in Harlem, means to be fantastic as well as funny and satiric, and from time to time, it is each of these things. Mostly, though, it's a nice, unsurprising shaggy-dog story that goes on far too long.

Central to the film's deft balancing act between shaggy dog humour and something just a little more serious is Morton's expressive performance as the alien, though the rest of the cast also plays admirably.

The two different ends require shifts in point of view that are beyond Sayles's talent as a visual storyteller, and the film does not cohere. Yet many of the individual scenes are charming, funny, and pointed, and the movie gives off Sayles's usual glow of goodwill.

Pic is essentially a series of behavioral vignettes, and many of them are genuinely delightful and inventive. Once the Brother discovers the Harlem drug scene, however, tale takes a rather unpleasant and, ultimately, confusing turn.

Sayles is no storyteller; despite the verve of its language, The Brother From Another Planet eventually sags of its own weight.