Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick (and the case against)
Normally when a film is described as being ‘one of a kind’, it’s at least in part a bit of hyperbole. After all, nothing can be that unique.
Except for maybe The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. There truly is nothing else like it.
Starring a pre-Robocop Peter Weller as the titular neurosurgeon/nuclear physicist/martial arts master/rock star/crimefighter/super-celebrity/etc., Banzai takes its cues from the madcap creative energy of Golden Age comic books, sci-fi serials, and pulp heroes like Doc Savage. With little in the way of exposition, director W.D. Richter drops you into the deep-end of Buckaroo’s world as he and his loyal cohorts, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, battle inter-dimensional evil in the form of John Lithgow as an Italian scientist possessed by an extraterrestrial dictator seeking to return to his home-world to continue his galactic genocide.
You know. One of those movies.
Buckaroo Banzai confounded not only audiences, but its own studio. With no idea how to market a film this dense, this unapologetically weird, Fox opted to dump the film in late summer, where it was promptly crushed in the wake of stuff like Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Star Trek: The Search for Spock. But the film steadily accumulated a devoted, passionate cult following, (among them: Wes Anderson, who borrows heavily from Banzai’s aesthetic and tone, even going so far as to close his 2004 film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou with a recreation of Buckaroo’s famous closing credits strut) many of whom still hold out hope to one day see the promised sequel, in which Buckaroo and his squad would face off against “The World Crime League”.
But one naysayer not holding his breath for any such continuation is our own Austin Vashaw, who hates the film as much as its most ardent fans love it. Tell us why Austin, and then let us know if the rewatch has moved your opinion on the film one way or another, in our final installment of Two Cents’ Second-Chance Theater.
Austin
That’s not quite a fair introduction; I don’t hate Buckaro Banzai (I’ve long adored the end credits) which was handed to me by a friend about 15 years ago. She treasured the film and was excited to share it with me. She knew my taste thought that the film’s unique insanity would be right up my alley, and that certainly seemed likely — with its incredible cast and wacky setup, I was just as thrilled to check it out. But I found the non-sequitur narrative baffling and rather than being charming, the film’s quirkiness was actively frustrating. Upon returning the DVD I felt terrible to bear the news: it just didn’t jive with me.
Years later, I’ve felt increasingly compelled to give it another chance, and this was in fact the film that prompted the idea for this “Second Chance Theater” series.
Next Week’s Pick:
Larry Cohen was perhaps the greatest idea man in genre film history. Cohen passed away this week, leaving behind a remarkable legacy of high concept horror. Among his his best known directorial works was Q: The Winged Serpent, which combined gritty NYC streets with a monster to make Ray Harryhausen blush.
Q: The Winged Serpent is available to stream on Amazon Prime.
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday!
The Rewatch
Between the cinephile love heaped upon it and comparisons to The Life Aquatic (my all-time favorite movie), I felt Buckaroo Banzai was due another chance. So 15 years later, I once again sat down with enthusiastic anticipation to watch it, hoping that maturity and perspective could render something new. I was surprised to realize about 20 minutes in that I was already past where I’d mentally checked out the last time, which was certainly promising. I was also somewhat keeping up with the nonsensical plot.
The film is a marvel in a lot of ways. It’s got heavy elements of science fiction with emphasis on the science, rock & roll, even a love story. The incredible cast is packed with character actors, and the alien creatures are particularly impressive in that you can actually still tell the actors beneath their heavy full-coverage masks. It also does something relatively unique in feeling like a next chapter in an established franchise, a bold move which probably contributed a lot to my initial confusion but commands respect. There’s a lot to love here.
And yet, sorry folks, I’m still not really into it. While I appreciate many aspects of what’s going on here (and certainly more than before), the experience is somehow less than the sum of its parts, and for me, being quirky and unique still doesn’t translate into being good. The sidekick characters in Banzai’s merry multi-hyphenate band have surface personalities but lack any depth, and about midway through the movie it all just starts to feel exhausting. I do have new respect and appreciation for Buckaroo Banzai, but I’m ultimately not a fan. (@VforVashaw)
Our Guests
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is one of those movies you either love or you don’t. It’s an eccentrically goofy pulp-inflected sci-fi comedy, and I love every single frame of it. Buckaroo Banzai and his Hong Kong Cavaliers are essentially an 80s update of Doc Savage and his Fabulous Five, but the movie has also always struck me as something of a science fiction cousin to Big Trouble In Little China (apt, since Banzai’s director contributed to the screenplay for Big Trouble).
What I especially love is that Buckaroo Banzai takes the “starting in the middle of a serial” approach of Star Wars and pushes it almost to its breaking point. We are thrown with very little warning into a fully developed world where Banzai has been a well-known action scientist rock star superhero for years, and we get only the barest of exposition to get up to speed. I can see where this aspect of the film could be frustrating — but its playful approach to the material, coupled with some really fun performances (ranging from deadpan to slapstick), keep Buckaroo Banzai entertaining even when it refuses to make complete sense. Besides that, it’s got Jeff Goldblum dressed as a singing cowboy, which is indisputably awesome and I will not hear otherwise. (@T_Lawson)
Brendan Agnew (The Norman Nerd):
I’d like to take a second to thank the internet for not making me sick in the teeth of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension before I finally got around to watching it properly. Though, as easy as it can be to have an experience ruined by being over-exposed to the material (see example: “Holy Grail, Monty Python and the”) short of sitting someone down and explaining everything about this movie to them with accompanying illustrations, there’s not really a way to do that with Buckaroo Banzai.
(No, I’m not typing out the whole thing every time, c’mon.)
So much of the fun of this movie isn’t just that it throws every genre flavor at the wall and goes skinny-dipping in pulp goofiness, it’s that W.D. Richter is so laid back about it. Not only is Weller doing a fabulous “straight man” strut through the film, but where satirical pulp heroes like Jack Burton run into and events at a full sprint or from behind the wheel of a truck, Buckaroo Banzai strolls through its theme park of outlandishness like its just another Tuesday. Even this attitude is folded into the film’s sense of humor — does New Jersey dress like the Rawhide Kid because he’s trying to impress the other colorful members of the Hong Kong Cavaliers? Or is that just his idea of everyday clothing? The movie is already moving on to another gag, so this just sits there like the references to other adventures (or that watermelon), quietly giggling to itself.
Buckaroo Banzai actually spends a bit too much time feeling clever with itself for me to love it the way so many others do, but it’s a film that feels too earnestly weird in its inspirations and execution — and packed full of earnestly weird actors — not to enjoy. (@BLCAgnew)
Adrian Torres:
The following is a series of mean names Adrian used to describe Austin after finding out he strongly disliked Buckaroo Banzai. They proceed:
“He is absolutely wrong and should henceforth only be referred to as Big-Bootay.”
“V for Very Suspect Taste.”
“‘Eww My Taste’ Lizardo.”
“Armond White.”
“Not Perfect Austin.”
“Apathetic Austin.”
“The Nonsense Ninja.”(@YoAdrianTorres)
The Team
I really enjoy Buckaroo Banzai, with each watch bringing up some new loopy bit of dialogue or delightful piece of world-building. It is a film so jam-packed with color and character and personality in every frame, that it’s simply not possible to digest it all in one viewing, or even after a few. And even if you do get a handle on everything happening onscreen, Buckaroo Banzai is constantly gesturing to even stranger worlds and wilder adventures happening off-camera, suggesting infinite possibilities of stories that, in a fair universe, Richter and his team could have explored across all manner of movies and other media.
That being said, there are times when Buckaroo Banzai feels akin to having ice cream for three meals a day. There’s really nothing to the film besides those surface pleasures of uncut nerdery (which are plentiful). Big Trouble in Little China (this movie’s closest blood relative) is similarly weightless, but that film at least had the delightfully caustic central joke that white savior Jack Burton was actually a complete dunce constantly tripping over his own two feet while the completely self-sufficient Asian characters took care of business. Banzai is too pure in its commitment to its two-fisted pulp world to offer any kind of deconstructive perspective (or any perspective at all really) on its hero and his adventures.
Which is not a ‘bad’ thing, to be clear. As I’ve said, the movie’s a total delight. But there does come a point for me every time I watch Buckaroo, usually around or a little after the hour mark, where I start to feel exhausted by the relentlessness of it, or start wishing there was something underpinning the movie besides “look at all the cool stuff we have!” But, it is really cool stuff, so I don’t mind too much. (@theTrueBrendanF)
Liam O’Donnell
THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE EIGHTH DIMENSION
I mean just say it out loud. It’s magic, promising everything and nothing at the same time. It’s breezy, snappy romp through a comic book inspired world of intrigue and mystery is that much more enticing because it refuses to explain itself. It seems like a joke, a gag, to throw so much ridiculous ideas at the audience without pausing even for a moment for them to catch up. It isn’t a gag though, or just a gag, more of a gimmick, played with a deadly sincere kayfabe that only occasionally winks at us, the beguiled audience.
In today’s world of over world-building, where our corporate entertainment overlords spend billions of dollars to explain and realize every last detail and idea in their “comic book movies” it is upsetting to realize how much more satisfying and artful Banzai is in denying us that. Not one of these CGI explosions so fully embrace a world of wonder and adventure the way this film does. Maybe we don’t need all of it, perhaps jumping in and not over explaining is just more enticing. Then again, I suspect this film is a magic trick which can never be recreated. (@LiamRulz)
Next week’s pick: