No. 9: BUCKAROO BANZAI
(AKA THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION)
Reviewed by Sam Hatch
AS THIS IS PART OF A RETRO NOSTALGIA BINGE AS OPPOSED TO A TRADITIONAL REVIEW, THERE MAY BE SPOILERS PRESENT IN THE TEXT.
What an apt movie to be paired with the previous film, as Buckaroo Banzai is a similar genre-bending outing directed by W.D. Richter, the man who rewrote Big Trouble in Little China into the twisted mélange I love so much. Though this film was in fact written by Earl Mac Rauch and not Richter, weirdness still abounds in it, and it truly is a quintessential cult film through and through.
Eventual Robocop star Peter Weller essays the title character, a scientist/neurosurgeon/samurai/rock star whose comic book-ish team of do-gooders (The Hong Kong Cavaliers), similarly possess multiple skillsets. Much of the actors went on to bigger and better things, with Jeff Goldblum, Ellen Barkin, Christopher Lloyd, John Lithgow and even Lost alum Clancy Brown as costars. Lithgow is the brilliantly twisted Lord John Whorfin (one of many alien entities named Lectroids who hail from an alternate dimension called Planet 10), who has inhabited the body of a scientist (Dr. Emilio Lizardo) once affiliated with Buckaroo's father. Professor Masado Banzai and his wife (played by Jamie Lee Curtis in a famous deleted scene, now included in the MGM DVD release) were working on a device (the oscillation overthruster), that would enable travel through solid matter.
Though they die early at the hands of criminal mastermind Hanoi Xan (whose World Crime League organization was supposed to be the focus of a never-realized sequel), young Buckaroo eventually completes the device with the aid of his father's friend Dr. Toichi Hikita, and has attached it to a Ford truck-turned rocket car. An early Trinity-esque test sees Buckaroo actually traveling through the dimension between the matter of a solid mountainside, and comes out the other end with a strange creature attached to his truck's undercarriage.
His success attracts the attention of Whorfin, who has been lingering in an insane asylum (in a great set by the way) awaiting his chance to go home. A subplot emerges in which Orson Welles' classic radio broadcast of the War of the Worlds was in actuality a cover-up for a real alien invasion in which countless Red Lectroids (the Red ones are bad entities with bad Italian accents, the Black ones are kindly Rastafarians) invaded New Jersey and set up shop at Yoyodyne Propulsion Laboratories. They're also all named John, and have humorous surnames such as Yaya, Bigbooté and Smallberries.
In the meantime Buckaroo encounters Barkin's Penny Priddy, a depressed lush who plans to off herself during a rollicking band performance by the Hong Kong Cavaliers. Oddly, she looks identical to Buckaroo's dead wife, another casualty at the hands of madman Hanoi Xan. Could there be a connection?
With the help of the Black Lectroids, the group learns of Whorfin's plan and sets off to stop it. Though as friendly as they are, the 'good guy' Black Lectroids are just as much of a threat, for if Buckaroo and his gang fail to stop Whorfin and his cohorts, they will attack Russia on purpose in an effort to instigate World War III. Ronald Lacey (Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark) appears as the US President Widmark, and his aide General Catburd is funny as hell as a completely out of the loop aggressor. He is eventually held at bay by a young boy (with an assault rifle) who is a member of Buckaroo's volunteer army - the Blue Blaze Irregulars.
Like Big Trouble, quotable lines abound - my favorite being a tie between Lord Whorfin's exclamation "Laugha while you can, Monkey Boy!" and his rallying cry to the Lectroid troops: "Where are we going?" "Planet Ten!" "When are we going?" "Real Soon!". And though the film has remained a cult item, it's title character's catchphrase "No matter where you go, there you are!" has not. It appears again and again in pop culture references. I remember myself and my stepfather being overly excited by the release of the film (I also managed to get a press kit from the Westfarms Mall Cinema when they had a going out of business sale), and my mother being less than chuffed at the finished product. I'm pretty sure she fell asleep.
But I loved it, and so did my dad - in fact I was jealous when he found a Buckaroo Banzai T-Shirt at a comic shop in Florida back in '87. Speaking of comics, I did pick up both the two-issue Marvel adaptation (which included the excised opening scene with Buckaroo's parents) and the magazine-sized reprint with both issues together. I also managed to dig up a set of Buckaroo Banzai ViewMaster discs at a local thrift shop. How cool is that?. Unfortunately, fans were given short shrift with Buckaroo on video, as the owner to the rights (David Begelman) actually hated the film and refused to allow anyone to re-release it as long as he lived. Fans morbidly rejoiced when he did indeed commit suicide shortly thereafter, and MGM released a very fan-friendly special edition DVD with cool extras and a very tongue-in-cheek commentary track with 'real' members of Buckaroo's entourage.
I was also pleased to see the addition of numerous scenes from the workprint, which meant I could finally ditch the dodgy VHS copy I had been coveting for many years. For fans of the 80s, you're in for a treat, for the music and fashion of the film are both horribly dated. Which only adds to the cool factor. And who hasn't fantasized about donning some skinny ties, rappelling into Los Angeles' Sepulveda Dam and walking along in time to Michael Boddicker's super-catchy synth-whistling end credits theme? But what's with the watermelon?