When Harry Segall wrote the play Heaven Can Wait, he probably never envisioned how long its premise—a seemingly foolproof mixture of wish-fulfillment, star-crossed romance, and fish-out-of-water comedy—would linger in the public consciousness. Brought to the screen as Here Comes Mr. Jordan in 1941, Heaven Can Wait was later adapted into a Warren Beatty vehicle under its original name in 1978. That film, in turn, has been remade as the Chris Rock vehicle Down To Earth, directed by American Pie's Weitz Brothers and written by Rock and members of his TV show staff. Rock's first solo vehicle since 1993's CB4, Down To Earth casts the SNL veteran as a bike messenger and aspiring comedian who is hit by a truck and mistakenly brought to heaven before his time, on the verge of what could be his big break. Embarrassed by the mix-up, head angel Chazz Palminteri places Rock in the body of a portly, obscenely wealthy white man. This development, needless to say, threatens to permanently derail Rock's stand-up career, but he chooses to press on, in the process recycling huge chunks of his old stand-up act from his comedy albums and book. Not surprisingly, many of the film's biggest laughs come from Chris Rock the whip-smart, lightning-fast comedian rather than Chris Rock the actor. Making Down To Earth's protagonist a working-class black man is probably the film's most inspired decision; Rock's presence allows it to tap into a vein of racial and class resentment absent from previous adaptations. But it needs all the help it can get, given its flaccid pacing, forgettable supporting cast, and lack of visual style. Down To Earth may be a remake of Heaven Can Wait, but it draws its central comic conceit—the incongruity of a long-in-the-tooth white man behaving like an irreverent young black man—from a less-loved Beatty vehicle, the hopelessly muddled political satire Bulworth. That film, for all its faults, at least couldn't be accused of lacking ambition; Down To Earth, by comparison, aspires to be little more than a serviceable vehicle for its co-writer, executive producer, and star. Its success ultimately says more about its sturdy premise and charismatic leading man than about anything else. But considering the sad state of mainstream comedies, success on any level, even on terms this modest, qualifies as an achievement.