There are some things people claim could’ve only been made
in the eighties. Sometimes they exaggerate—especially when it feels like people
are trying to remake or emulate every damn thing from the eighties anyway. But
there’s one thing that they are absolutely correct about—and that is the Adventures
of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eight Dimension. And you think the full title of Dr. Strangelove is a mouthful.
The brainchild of one W.D. Richter, Buckaroo Banzai stars a
pre-Robocop Peter Weller as the titular physicist neurosurgeon kung-fu rock
star. Who throughout the film is remarkably modest about his status as a
renaissance man, who happens to hang around the likes of Jeff Goldblum in a
cowboy suit. I’m not making any of this up, by the way.
 |
| I had much the same reaction to Robocop 3. |
Now you might be
asking, just what the hell was the impetus for something that sounds like one
too many coke binges over comic books while listening to Devo? Well, it was
probably the old scifi pulp stories like Doc Savage—mixed with the peak
nerdiness of eighties scifi conventions. This was a film made specially for
that kind of crowd—this was back in the day when if you wanted a copy of the mythical
Star Wars Holiday Special, you had to trade for VHS tapes from that weirdo ten
feet from the stand selling Star Trek fanzines. Old pulps from the fifties
would trade alongside bootleg B-movies—and I can only guess that in this miasma
of pre-internet glasses-polished geekery, at least a portion of Buckaroo Banzai’s
genesis took shape. Otherwise, I’ve absolutely no friggin’ idea.
The plot of the film, is, erm, off-kilter. It launches you
right into proceedings, again as if you’re picking up an old pulp issue or watching
an ancient serial. It’s much the same thing Lucas was going for with Star Wars,
except there he had the decency to literally spell out everything you needed to
know. As such, you’re probably going to be weirded out until the story
stabilizes roughly half an hour in and you’re actually able to keep track of
things. So basically, Mr. Banzai conducts some sort of experiment that attracts
two factions of alien Lectroids from Planet Ten in the Eight Dimension, with
the fate of the Earth hanging in the balance. Some of these Lectroids are lead
by a maniacal John Lithgow, with a latex-clad Christopher Lloyd backing him up.
The good guy ones are a group of Jamaican-accented aliens. I did say the plot
stabilized, I never said it returned to sanity.
 |
| "Great Scott, Marty, it's the timeline where we all look like Star Trek Discovery Klingons!" |
Some people have pointed out that all this weirdness that
assumes you know a continuity that doesn’t actually exist sort of pre-empts the
current style propagated by Marvel Studios and the like. Think about how the
last two Avengers might seem to someone with no clue about them—they’d be
complete and utter gibberish about purple people obsessed over elaborate hand
accessories. It’s certainly that kind of spirit that Buckaroo Banzai embraces
and runs with full tilt.
The film also has an undercurrent of political satire—the evil
group of aliens are upfrontly a group of space fascists, whereas the good ones—named
both ‘black lectroids’ and appearing as, well, black people in their human
guises—are the ones the former seek to oppress. There’s a less than flattering
look at the US military-industrial complex, who manipulate an infirmed
President—and this is a few years before Reagan’s Alzheimer’s was known about. It’s
not the domineering theme of the film, but there’s certainly something
being said.
So is it worth watching? If you can get past the bizarre
first part, I say go for it. It’s got that deadpan style of humor a la
Ghostbusters I really like, Peter Weller is comically serious and Jeff Goldblum
is great. I can see why people like Kevin Smith and Ernest Cline have floated
their own ideas for continuations over the years, despite its box office failure—and indeed, like the James
Bond films of old, the end credits come with a promise of a sequel that never
materialized. A serious proposal, or another part of the pulp homage theme? Who
the hell knows! But I can definitely tell you that, even in the realm of
eighties oddities, it’s unique, and that’s reason enough to at least give it a
gander, even if you might be left scratching your head.
Comments
Post a Comment