There are a number of movies that are just not appreciated in their own time. I call them “most under-rated films ever”. They include movies like Broadway Danny Rose and Requiem for a Heavyweight (see review on this website) and maybe one of the most underappreciated films in existence, featuring a pre-Robocop Peter Weller.
Three years before Peter Weller became a breakout star with Robocop, he starred in an updated, quirky sci-fi nod to Doc Savage of pulp fiction lore, as Buckaroo Banzai- a neurosurgeon, physicist, crime fighter hero who also happens to be a rock star. The film at the time was considered a failure, but now is one of the greatest cult classics in existence.
The plot (which really doesn’t matter a whole lot) concerns Buckaroo attempting to stop the Red ‘Lectdroids from the 8th dimension in invading Earth. The bad guys are aided in their assault by Dr Emelio Lizardo (played flawlessly by John Lithgow in one of his most over-the-top roles we have ever seen). Lizardo attempted to reach the 8th dimension (and the Lectdroids Planet 10) decades earlier in a botched attempt that left him stuck halfway between here and there. The accident left him clinically insane, and institutionalized.
Now the Lectdroids (led by Christopher Lloyd and Vincent Shiavelli) want to use Lizardo’s help to breach the barrier between dimensions and have the Lectdroids attack Russia, triggering WW3. Fortunately, Banzai is assisted by his rock and roll team of crime fighters, The Hong Kong Cavaliers including Clancey Brown and Jeff Goldblum. Also assisting the Earth are the Black Lectdroids from Planet 10, who all have dreadlocks and talk with Jamaican accents. Confused? Don’t worry. It doesn’t make sense, because it doesn’t have to.
What makes the movie so appealing is all the clever nods to pulp fiction, planet-dominating super villains, polymath heroes, aliens, mad scientists, ties to Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds radio broadcast, and lines like “Find out what she knows! Use more honey!” being spewed by John Lithgow (with an Italian accent) when one of the females from the group of good guys (Ellen Barkin playing the identical twin sister of Banzai’s dead wife) won’t give up information, so Lizardo covers her in ants. It’s brilliant.
Speaking of Lizardo, he keeps calling Christopher Lloyd’s character John Bigga-booty when Lloyd tells him multiple times it’s pronounced “Boo-tay! Boo-tay!” There’s one correction too many, and instead of arguing, Lizardo whirls around with a .44 Magnum and blows Boo-tay into oblivion.
Or consider a time when the heroes are all running through a laboratory, and one guy stops the other and asks (seeing a watermelon in a bench vise) “why is that watermelon in a vise?” The other responds “I’ll tell you later.” Of course, we are never told the answer.
Reviewers called BB at the time of its release, a movie a little to impressed with its own cleverness. So what? It’s a smart nod to pulp fiction, filled with little gems of dialogue and sight gags sprinkled throughout the entire movie. It’s brilliantly written, and dare I say, acted even better. Weller, Lithgow, Lloyd, Shiavelly, Goldblum, Brown are all perfect in their perform,ances. The film cost 17M to make and had a box office of 6.3M, and was considered a bomb. I get it. You either get Buckaroo Banzai or you don’t. Even now. I get this movie. I love this movie.
IMDB does not get this movie, giving it an undeserving 6.2/10. It’s quirky and ridiculous and a perfect example of Doc Savage pulp fiction in the modern day, and we honor it with an 8.2/10.