I'm with Umbran. If the player is enthusiastic about your game and isn't a jerk, I would say that you have a good player there.
And also in my opinion, if he's mimicking a character from a novel, at least he envisions his character with a personality. I recall a friend creating a fighter and naming him "Fighter" once, and his sole purpose was... fighting.
Nod. There are five PC's in the 4e campaign I'm a player in (I run and am much happier with 3.5, but hey, DM's house, DM's rules).
-- McLovin, the Warlock. Yes, named after the fake ID in "Superbad". McLovin likes to do massive damage, and doesn't really care if he gets killed or not, because, as his player says, "Hey, who cares, it's just D&D."
-- Seeker II, the wizard. Renamed by popular demand from whatever the player wanted to call him, because we all loved the original "Seeker the wizard" in our first multi-year 3.0 campaign. Seeker likes to use clever tactics and not get killed, which mostly means staying away from the rest of us and trying to get us to be serious for a minute once in a while.
-- Erik the Viking, the warlord. Yes, named after the Monty Python character. not so much Erik the Red the actual historical guy. He's a redhead with a big sword, and a spiked helmet. He likes to kill stuff.
-- Tiberius, the paladin. Yes, named after the "T" in James T. Kirk. He likes to talk to the NPCs, and wants to restore the we-haven't-bothered-to-name-it fallen empire by killing all the monsters he can find.
-- Warden, the cleric. I think there's more to Warden, but I'm not sure what. Warden is very different from the rest of us, in that his priority is not killing stuff, but keeping us doofuses alive. He also talks to NPCs, but not as much as Tiberius.
That's seriously the full extent of the revealed personalities (in 3 sessions) and backstory for the whole party.
So, a character with a personality, no matter where it's ripped off from, yeah, that's pretty stylin', but it might get in the way of the all important killing stuff, and pointless wise cracking.
The belly laughs on Saturday came when we killed a bunch of kobolds, by the side of a river. The question of what to do with the bodies came up with many interesting answers (omitting the folks laughing until they nearly fell over at various "ideas"):
Warden player: Cut them open and search for gems!
Tiberius player: Let's make them into a boat.
(several) How could we make a boat?
DM: If you can kill it, you can make a boat out of it.
Seeker player: Let's take their weapons and armor to sell.
(several) Who wants kobold armor?
Erik player: Maybe we could make shin guards.
Seeker player: Maybe we could put their heads on spikes as a warning to the others.
Tiberius player: Maybe we could stick their heads on the spikes on Erik's helmet.
DM: Maybe you could hang their 'nads from the spikes, like fuzzy dice.
Seeker player: Seriously, why don't we just burn the bodies. We don't want to leave equipment behind for the other kobolds.
McLovin player: OK, burn the bodies, then dump them in the river.
DM: OK, what's left of the burned kobold bodies jams against some rocks, here, just down stream.
(several) OK, let's go find that kobold lair.
Hmmm, I never realized the guy playing Seeker is trying to be serious . . . well, compared to the rest of us, at least.