Las aventuras de Buckaroo Banzai

What a great way to start the New Year! I just watched this flick for the first time in ages and remember now why I agree that it is a "cult classic"!

Made in 1984 way before most of the actors achieved real star status, this movie has so many "inside" references and jokes, it's a wonder that more isn't made of it! And if you are a real Star Trek fan, you will know that Yoyodyne Propulsion is on the commissioning plaque for the Enterprise as well as other Star Fleet vessels. The references to Grover's Mill and Orson Wells along with the whole deadpan tone of the film makes this an unbelievably funny experience. I only wish that "Buckaroo Banzai versus The World Crime League" had been produced.

Peter Weller, Jeff Goldblum, John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin, Dan Hedaya, the entire cast must have had a great time making this movie. It is full of technojargon, double speak and just plain funny stuff that pokes fun at every bad B-movie scifi thriller/comic book/Saturday serial ever made. There is no bad language and no skin and lots to hear and see in this great movie!

It has one redeeming quality above all else for me... it makes the effects on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and all of those other poor excuses for Saturday kid's entertainment look ridiculous. If the producers of this crap on TV that passes for action need some pointers on how to take useless stuff and make a cool, funny scifi flick, they need look no further that "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eight Dimension"!

Saw the title and couldn't NOT watch it. This is an absurdly 80s, absurdly absurd movie about... I don't even know but it was crazy and I want more of this type of thing. Movies that are just bonkers and yet still try to ground in some sort of reality. It's a balance I think we've lost but the 80s nailed. It's a weird watch, but if you're looking for crazy, you found it.

If you like The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy or Red Dwarf, chances are you'll enjoy Buckaroo Bonzai. It is full of subtle/dry humor and has an overall upbeat mood. The subtly dry humor is found in the background audio as well as the odds and ends that find their way into the set decor and dialog. These offer a nice array of silliness to punctuate the story with their own unique twists of humor.

The cast is definitely All Star! Peter Weller (Robocop), John Lithgow (Third Rock from the Sun), Robert Ito (Quincy MD), Clancy Brown (Highlander), Ellen Barkin (Wild Bill), and Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future) all have fun and amusing roles. Even the minor roles are covered well by perhaps lesser known yet veteran cast members such as Rosalind Cash and Matt Clark.

If you're a fan of British humor, you should definitely enjoy this one, even though it may take more than one viewing to catch all the subtleties. If you haven't been exposed to this style of humor, this certainly isn't a bad place to start! If, on the other hand, this style of humor is not what you enjoy, it may not be the one for you. For everyone else, kick back and enjoy! If it weren't a bit of a cult classic, I doubt it would be available on DVD. I give it a 7 out of 10 since it may not be for everyone. Personally, I rate it a notch higher.

A totally ridiculous 80's Sci-fi movie. The first scene has our hero drive through a solid mountain, and from there it gets bonkers. Great fun, makes Mars Attack look sensible. As for the cast, it's a who's who of 80's / 90's TV and film actors.The effects are terrible but the movie is great fun. A must watch.

This is a fun film. It doesn't take itself seriously and neither should the viewer.

The plot centres around a pre-Robocop Peter Weller's character (the implausibly named Buckaroo Banzai) who is a scientist/rock musician/surgeon...seems to be talented at just about everything. In his lab he perfects a device for travelling through solid matter on the pretext that 'solid matter' is in fact 80% empty space. True enough and so far so good.

In the movie, the 80% of matter that is space turns out to be the 8th dimention, and Banzai unwittingly causes some nasty alien "lectoids" to enter our dimension. With the help of good lectoids he and his rock band have to save the day.

John Lithgow really steals the show with some excellent madcap lines. The big name actors clearly knew this was not to be taken seriously and though the plot is OK it is the one-liners in the script that make the movie so enjoyable. Special FX are early 80's par for the course, this is not the highest budget film ever! The only question is why didn't the advertised sequal ever make it to the screen?