The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai – Across the 8th Dimension

Rating: Umm.... some 1, some 10
Genre: Comedy / Sci-fi / Adventure / Drama / Documentary

This movie from 1984 is a great blend of classic B movie sci-fi and 80s pop culture. Think “Back To The Future” meets “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” meets Rick Springfield. Then throw in some well-known character actors and some really bad bad acting, sprinkle in quantum physics and a skinny leather tie or two there you have it! The blend makes for a very unique viewing experience.

John Lithgow, Jeff Goldblum, Cristopher Lloyd, Ellen Barkin, Peter Weller (of RoboCop fame)…what a cast, right? You’d think! Actually, John Lithgow does do a pretty good job in his role as a racists-rebel-leader-alien-possessed mad scientist… very over-the-top in a way that only he could do.

The story itself begins with a journey through solid matter that opens the door to worlds within the 8th dimension. Yep, there are aliens in rocks, who knew?! The new-found aliens are caught in race war on Planet 10 and now Earth is smack dab in the middle of the crisis. The stories hero, Buckaroo Bonzai, and his wacky side-kick band made up of physicists and brain surgeons must stop the alien war before the aliens escalate Earth’s own military tension (we’re in the middle of the cold war still, remember?).

In the end, this movie was really, really bad in an unforgettably good way. I watched in the theatres when I was 15 and still have some of the creative, before-its-time imagery burned in my cortex. I still get a kick out of John Bigbooty & John Smallberries, two of the many John’s employed at Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems. Plus, you gotta love those wool chaps. If you don’t understand, I guess you’ll have to watch the movie!