Pete's Meteor

Pete's Meteor. I seen this referred to as "authentic" and a "gem." I caught this movie on a Saturday afternoon. I kinda wished that I didn't.

Apparently this was noted as being Mike Myers' first dramatic role. Unfortunately it had to be this movie. The first thing you'll notice that Pete's Meteor suffers from is a complete lack of plot. Or rather, a bunch of little subplots that aren't really connected and don't go anywhere. Young orphan Mickey lives with his younger brother and sister with their grandmother. A meteorite lands in their garden and is eventually collected by a scientist named Hugh. Despite the title of the movie, Mickey is the one who lays claim to the meteor, and the "storyline" actually has little to do with the meteor in any shape or form. From here on out, several other characters and subplots are introduced. But like I said before, they don't really go anywhere.

Things go from cute family movie to dark thriller pretty fast, when Pete (Mike Myers) is introduced and starts to play a role. Micky blames him for the death of his parents, though we're never really told what happened or why. Hugh has romance problems because his girlfriend can't get past his cosmic fascination. And Pete's drug-related past starts to catch up with him and temporarily draws his own girlfriend and the rest of the cast into the mix when shady characters start trying to kill him. This would seem to be the main plot, until you realize it doesn't even have a role until halfway through the film, making everything else feel like pointless filler. Hugh's girl problems, Mickey's bad behavior, the meteor...what on EARTH do they have to do with this? Not much.

So the 'plot' is disjointed and half of it is pointless. But a good cast of characters can save it, right? Keyword: good. The majority of characters are terribly unlikable people, most of which you'd like to see die horribly. At least, I know I would. Despite the title, Mickey seems to be the main character, which is a really bad move once you see him in action. He is one of the WORST little kids I've seen in a movie, with an extremely bad attitude problem. He 'borrows' a car, harasses and talks trash to Hugh (an adult) for taking the meteor, actually attempts burn the man's house down when he doesn't get his way, and even tries to stab Pete with a knife. You'd think a kid like this is on his way to the jail house. Unfortunately, one of the worst things about this movie is that Mickey never gets what's coming to him. I'm not sure at what point you're supposed to be sympathizing with his character, because he's always a nasty little brat. He's the ringleader for his brother and sister, so they predictably end up taking and backseat and just following whatever he does. Amazingly, they're pushed back so far that I can't even remember their names. They might as well not even be there.

Their grandmother is pretty much a borderline alcoholic. She tends to be just as nasty to Hugh as Mickey, and likes to push people out of her house and give them evil glares when she's not chugging down liquor bottles and drinking herself silly. Pretty ridiculous when you take into account that she's supposed to be taking care of three children. Her issues with alcohol are never really addressed, though she does collapse from time to time in the movie.

Hugh is one of the few likable characters in the movie, but that's only because he's the punching bag for the majority of characters and takes their mess without giving it back. The kids treat him nastily but he always comes back and tries to teach them and do nice things with them. He's got a taxi driver girlfriend who seems to take every aspect of his life as a scientist as a personal offense, attempting to leave him several times in the movie when he goes off into his cosmic lingo or does something to prove that he isn't exactly on the same wavelength as the rest of the characters (thankfully).

Then there's Mike Myers as Pete. Pete, despite having the only solid purpose and plot in the movie, is extremely underused and doesn't play any kind of role until the second half. It's unfortunate that Myers got stuck in such a position for a dramatic role. Even when Pete is getting screen time, half of it is just Myers running through dark alleys and hiding in small corners. And even though he was the only real point to this movie, when his plot line brings the movie to a close, it's a strange, unfulfilling conclusion that has all the characters laughing on a good note with a quick and strange explanation behind the title of the movie, making you wonder if they were just performing in the movie you were just watching.

The only thing worth seeing in Pete's meteor is Mike Myers' role as Pete, and that's if you can wade through this disjointed mess long enough without lashing out at another human being due to the extremely unlikable characters and nonexistent plot line. No sir, I didn't like this one at all.

The only reason for me for watching this little known Irish film was the question could Mike Myers have played a normal, dramatic character. Well, he could and his acting was pretty good but unfortunately that was probably the only good thing that I can say about this film. In the beginning film follows life of twelve years old orphan Mickey who lives with his brother and sister with their somewhat eccentric grandma. Despite some strong language it looks like a family film but after a while it becomes clearly that Pete's Meteor is a hardly suitable for young audience drama. And the worst is that it is a drama with so much ridiculous and even totally implausible plot. One preposterous story line turns into another and all the time there is no much sense in the events on screen. I suppose when a life drama needs a meteor or what is more something that looks like even more ridiculous spiritual content that's a really bad sign. The characters are not much better than a story. Despite all his troubles young Mickey by no means is not a likable character but it's clearly was somehow we were supposed to care about him and even feel strong sympathy to him. It doesn't work. The same thing with other characters. They are mostly as ridiculous as the story itself with the title character (although he wasn't the main character) as the only bright spot. Towards the end of the movie I still had a strong hope that there is something behind of all that improbability and absurdity. Unfortunately even if the writer of the story had such intentions (and I'm sure he had) in the film they are hidden and practically imperceptible under such a weird script.

Grade: 3 out of 10. Those of you who are interested in seeing Mike Myers as a drama actor can watch Pete's Meteor for that reason but the rest of viewers most likely will be bitterly disappointed.

This is probably the worst film I have ever seen. Mike Myers tries to be a dramatic actor and fails miserably. The children, who have the major roles, are almost impossible to understand and are really unpleasant characters. It was not even worth the price of the rental.

Too bad Mike Meyers picked this for his dramatic debut. This film looks like it was put together by a committee that couldn't decide if it was a comedy, drama, suspense, or sci-fi. It starts out sort of playful, then quickly gets darker, and then at the end, apparently shortly after one of the main characters has been killed, the whole family is standing in the backyard laughing about something. It's totally weird and impossible to string together. The acting is extremely uneven, with the older professionals engaging your attention, and then the younger and less experienced actors looking like they are in a high school play. This movie showed me that it's probably harder to make a good movie than is evident from the truly professional fare we see in the first-run and art houses. This would be a good film for a film class to analyze. Plot, character, theme, consistency - they are all either faulty or missing from this film.

It's got one of the biggest stars in Hollywood doing a surprisingly good Irish accent, a wildly original plot and it's set in one of the world's hippest cities. So why has it waited so long to find a distributer? Mike Myers shows he's not just capable of high camp in this story of a working-class Dublin kid who finds a meteor in his back garden only to have it's potential as a tourist attraction robbed by a woosy university geologist. Myers plays a friend of the kid's sister who is held responsible for her death by the family, and who clashed with the geologist over the family's future. It's a tender, funny story that often sinks into sentimentalism and isn't consistently competent in the thespian department, but surely deserves an audience outside the Irish film festival circuit.