#31 – The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension! (1984)

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension! (1984)

Film review #31

Director: W.D. Richter

Cult sci-fi about a modern renaissance man and his skilled team…

SYNOPSIS: Out in the desert, a group of people have gathered for a test of a new jet car that could break through into the 8th dimension, however, the driver has not yet arrived. So while the final checks are being made, one of them goes to make a call…

In a hospital operating theatre, Dr. Buckaroo Banzai is operating on a patient. Using his skills as a brilliant doctor, he saves the patient, and is impressed by his assistant, and asks him if he would like to join his team. Banzai is then shown to arrive by helicopter at the test site for the jet car. The test starts and Banzai is driving the car as it breaks the sound barrier and continues. Banzai continues despite being order to abort, and he heads directly towards a mountain. Just before he crashes, he disappears into a strange void full of strange shapes and landscapes, as soon as he enters this strange dimension though, he exits out of the other side of the mountain, and so completing a successful attempt to travel into the 8th dimension. Attached to his car though, is a strange creature…

Meanwhile, Dr. Emilio Rizardo, committed in an asylum for the criminally insane is watching the report about Banzai’s achievement on TV. Banzai’s mentor, Dr. Hikita talks about the device that made it possible: The oscillation overthruster. A flashback shows how both Rizardo and Hikita managed to open a portal into the 8th dimension many years ago, and how Rizardo briefly entered the dimension and apparently went insane. Having now built his own oscillator overthruster to reenter the 8th dimension, he phones up a “John Bigbooté”, and escapes the asylum to meet up with some friends at Yoyodyne…

Back with Banzai, he and his team and band, the Hong Kong Cavaliers are doing a gig in New Jersey. Looking out into the crowd, Banzai sees a woman crying. He asks her name, and she responds as Penny Priddy. She is down on her luck, and Banzai, being the renaissance man he is, plays her a song on the piano (Mistakenly calling her Peggy). However, this fails to lift her mood, and is about to shoot herself in the head until someone knocks her and the bullet flies into the air, and she is taken away by police. The team reflect on how she looks exactly the same as his ex-wife. They then learn that Rizardo has escaped, and they have also detected a cloud-like mass over southern New England. Banzai goes to meet New Jersey, the doctor Banzai was working with in the operating theater, and introduces him to the team. Banzai and Perfect Tommy find Penny in jail and bail her to join Banzai.

At a press conference, Banzai explains his achievement in breaking through the 8th dimension, and how his parents died on the hunch that these extra dimensions house aliens and new races, and they reveal the creature they found attached to Banzai’s car. Meanwhile, an alien spaceship high in orbit above the Earth is watching, and launches a thermopod. Banzai gets a call from the president, and recieves a shock from the line, after which, he is able to see through the disguise of Lectroids, the aliens from the 8th dimension, who are trying to take over the world. They kidnap Hikita, and Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers give chase.

The thermopod the aliens launched lands in some woods, and the Lectroids pick up the signal and give chase. Some hunters and cops get there first, and while one of the aliens who emerges is shot, the other escapes. Banzai radios Rawhide, one of the Hong Kong Cavaliers to return to their compound and dig up any information on Yoyodyne industries. The Lectroids find the thermopod and eliminate all the witnesses, but Banzai is close behind. The Cavaliers send out a message to the Blue Blaze Irregulars, a network of volunteers who help out Banzai when he needs it. Two of them in the area, Casper and Scooter Lindley, receive the call and head to Banzai’s aid. He rescues Hikita from the back of the van, and explains he can see the Lectroids, and he knows that they are from planet 10, by way of the 8th dimension. Banzai is rescued by Casper and Scooter, while Hikita escapes on a motorbike.

At the compound, the team are investigating Yoyodyne, and they find that all the employees have the first name “John”, and appeared at the same time that The War of the Worlds broadcast by Orson Welles that announced an alien invasion in 1938 wasn’t a hoax, but was real, and the Lectroids came to Earth on that day. Meanwhile the alien from the thermopod arrives and says he needs to see Buckaroo. calling himself John Parker, he delivers a holographic message from The Black Lectroids, a species of peaceful aliens who banished the Red Lectroids to the 8th dimension. Their leader, John Whorfin (All of the Lectroids have the first name John), now resides in Dr. Rizardo, and will try to steal the overthruster to return to the planet 10 to take revenge. Sure enough, an attack on the compound follows, and Penny is kidnapped, along with the overthruster. The Black Lectroids warn Banzai to retrieve the overthruster, or they will stage a nuclear strike against the Russians and start World War III in order to protect themselves. Rizardo contacts Banzai, telling him to come alone to Yoyodyne industries with the overthruster…

Banzai heads in in his jet car, ordering the Hong Kong Cavaliers to come in after 30 minutes to “mop up”. Banzai is captured by Rizardo/Whorfin and ordered to tell the secret of the overthruster, while the Cavaliers, backed up by the Secretary of defense move in. Banzai manages to escape and rescue Penny, then Banzai and John Parker head off to find the ship the Red Lectroids have been constructed. When Whorfin, and Bigbooté take off in it, Banzai and Parker give chase in a spare thermopod, and blow up Whorfin’s ship with him in it. The victorious Banzai then returns, into the arms of Penny…

THOUGHTS AND ANALYSIS: This is an odd film. It is (I think) primarily a science-fiction, mixing elements of satire, romance and comedy. It has a distinctive 80’s flair that is of its time; the soundtrack, the outrageous costumes and the humour all add up to create that eighties vibe. The special effects in Buckaroo Banzai were really good too; the costumes of the Lectroids are very well done, and though most of the sets aren’t very elaborate in terms of science-fiction, they are still well put together. The jet car and the alien ships have sort of messy aesthetic to them, unlike the more sterile sets one might usually see in science-fiction.

There are a lot of interesting ideas in this movie. The world created in this movie seems very rich and interesting, introducing a rage of interesting characters in Buckaroo Banzai and his Hong Kong Cavaliers. However, I think that the film just isn’t long enough to realise all these interesting ideas in just 102 minutes. This is no more prevalent than in the protagonist of the film: Buckaroo Banzai, a regular renaissance man; who is a surgeon, rocket car driver, rock star and physicist. The film spreads out Banzai across all these areas, in which he handles all with ease. The characters of the Hong Kong Cavaliers, such as Rawhide and Perfect Tommy seem to be really interesting characters, but are never fleshed out during the film. As I said, a rich world has been created, but it is never really elaborated upon. I suppose one should just enjoy the ride that the film offers, rather than trying to overthink what is happening in what is mainly a comedy film. A sequel was planned, which was mentioned at the end of the film, but it was sadly never realised.

With regards to the reception of the film, it failed at the box office, making only half it’s budget back. Its failure in this respect could be due to a number of reasons. As I mentioned earlier, the movie creates an interesting backstory, but there just isn’t enough time to elaborate on it, making the movie a little confusing. The deadpan humour of Buckaroo Banzai also may not be to everyone’s tastes too, I imagine if you went in to see a comedy film as this was advertised, you might not “get” the humour on offer. It’s lack of success can also be attributed to the fact that it was never really advertised to a mainstream audience, instead promotions and advertisements were done at various science-fiction conventions, appealing to that core audience which it would enjoy it, rather than the public in general. Despite it’s shortcomings in the cinema, it has become a cult movie, gaining a small but dedicated fanbase, and a number of spinoffs in the form of novels and comics have been released since the movie, which shows the movie still has that appeal to a circle of people. I think the film can capture one’s imagination quite well with the possibilities of this renaissance man and his band of merry men.

In short, I think Buckaroo Banzai is a fun film; the characters are interesting, the production is slick, and the special effects are well done. It is pretty much a science-fiction film for science-fiction fans though, and other people may not enjoy the humour or the story that the film has to offer. Appealing to the science-fiction core seems like a double-edged sword really: They will get the humour, the characters, and perhaps the confusing plot, but science-fiction is a genre that hinges on it’s audience paying special attention to the details, and since this movie skips over some of the finer details, it can seem a little confusing, even to the core sci-fi fan. But again perhaps this leaves a lot of space for an imaginative mind to fill in the gaps and have lots of fun with the world that is established in the movie. Regardless, it is a fun movie, and if sci-fi is your thing, this should be your thing too.

And remember: “No matter where you go…There you are.”