‘Why is there a watermelon there?‘
Cult cinema. It’s a strange beast. You might see a title as outré as The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension and assume that it is low-budget, B-movie slop. That is not the case. This film had a $17 million budget and was distributed by 20th Century Fox. The cast includes John Lithgow, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Lloyd, Clancy Brown and Dan Hedaya, with Robocop himself (Peter Weller), in the title role. Man, the ’80s really were an insane time for cinema…
The plot is unimportant. Director W. D. Richter doesn’t bother with trivial details such as exposition or backstory, instead throwing us straight into the action with Weller driving a jet car through a mountain, Lithgow sporting some truly gruesome prosthetics and shouting a lot, and Lloyd dressed in an alien costume. No, the plot doesn’t matter. The best way to enjoy this extremely unserious film is to just react to it in the moment. Don’t question any of it. That way madness lies.
Is it any good? It’s difficult to say. It’s tonally consistent. It’s funny in places (both intentionally and unintentionally). The cast are committed (too committed, some said). Weller is genuinely great as *checks notes* Buckaroo Banzai. It’s all a whole bunch of wonderful nonsense. I didn’t understand any of it, but it shares the kind of zany spirit of films like Phantasm, Killer Klowns from Outer Space and Steve Miner’s House – namely a lot of gibberish, but also a lot of heart. Dear reader, I admired it, but I can’t say with any conviction that I enjoyed it.
