The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

One of 1984's most unusual and memorable pictures tells the story of Dr. Buckaroo Banzai (Peter Weller), a physicist, neurosurgeon, test pilot, rock star, piano player, comic book hero, and all-around cool guy who, along with his band of compadres, "The Hong Kong Cavaliers," attempts to save the world from a group of inter-dimensional aliens from Planet 10. These villains, led by Lord John Whorfin (John Lithgow), who has been dimensionally challenged and trapped in the body of the insane Dr. Emilio Lizardo, are Admiral-Ackbar-lookin' beings who have all taken the Earth name "John" and disgusted themselves They Live style as Earth scientists. These evil Red Lectroids will stop at nothing to rule, but there are also Black Lectroids on Earth trying to stop them. Lithgow has never given as over-the-top a performance as he does here (and this guy spent seven seasons playing the whacked-out alien patriarch on 3rd Rock from the Sun). So many of his lines and line deliveries have become catchphrases for the fans of this wacky cult favorite.

Screenwriter W. D. Richter (who wrote the 1970s versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Dracula and would go on to write Big Trouble in Little China, Late for Dinner, Needful Things, and Home for the Holidays) made his debut as a director and producer not with an original script but by hiring novelist Earl Mac Rauch to develop a screenplay about a character Rauch had been tinkering with called Buckaroo Banzai. Richter teamed up with producer Neil Canton, who would produce Back to the Future the following year, and somehow got this crazy project green-lit by 20th Century Fox. How that happened is as mysterious as how they lured such an incredible cast into the film. While this mash-up of action-adventure, science fiction, adolescent romance, and drugless PG stoner comedy is certainly not for everyone and failed at the box office, it was a hit with highbrow critics like Pauline Kael and Vincent Canby and won a devoted fanbase via home video and cable TV.

I saw this in the cinema when I was thirteen and loved it, though I couldn't really follow the story. I've returned to it a few times, but rewatching it on its 40th anniversary with friends, I was dazzled by how many laughs are packed into this picture and how it never runs out of gas. The film maintains its off-kilter energy because the laughs are constantly arriving from unexpected places. The dialogue and the way these actors deliver their lines never wear thin, but there are also hilarious choices that come from the set decoration, ADR, character names, costumes, make-up, visual effects, and even music. Like most intentionally "wacky" WTF movies, it builds to an unsatisfying narrative climax, but this film redeems itself with an end credits sequence that makes you forget the plot of the movie and leaves you thinking only about what you loved. This is the only picture I've seen with this type of bizarre curtain call, in which every cast member struts around the LA River bed in front of the Sepulveda Dam, coming together like proud buddies unsure exactly of what they just accomplished. The movie also ends with the promise of a sequel, Buckaroo Banzai, Against the World Crime League, but that never materialized. That's just as well. Movies like this are all the more special when they stand alone.