Most cult movies that are actively made with the intention of becoming cult movies from the outset just wind up missing their target and alienating everyone, both the multiplex mass audiences who don’t get what the film is supposed to be, and actual cult movie fans who don’t appreciate being pandered to. An argument can be made that 1984’s The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension should probably fall into that category. Certainly, the people who made such deliberately weird nonsense must have known (and not cared) that it would never be embraced by the mainstream.
Buckaroo Banzai turned out to be so strange that even cult film aficionados didn’t know what to make of it. For the time, it was a healthily-budgeted sci-fi movie produced by a major studio in the wake of Star Wars. That type of thing didn’t much appeal to the people who flocked to midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Eraserhead. Yet it also lacked basic components that regular paying viewers would expect to find, such as any sort of rational coherence to its storytelling. As a result, the studio had no idea how to market it. The movie felt like something made for the tiniest of niche audiences, most of whom were deprived of even knowing it existed.
| Title: | The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension |
| Year of Release: | 1984 |
| Director: | W.D. Richter |
| Watched On: | Blu-ray |
| Also Available On: | DVD Pluto TV Tubi Various VOD rental and purchase platforms |
While watching Buckaroo Banzai, one gets the sense that the movie must be based on some obscure but long-running series of pulp novels, probably first published in the 1950s. At the very least, it must have started as a zany comic book before being adapted to screen. Almost shockingly, no, the film comes from an original script by screenwriter Earl Mac Rauch, who had previously written Martin Scorsese’s failed musical New York, New York and would later pen the disastrous John Belushi bio-pic Wired.
The story, for what one can make of it, has a deep and complicated mythology that Rauch had probably been developing in his head for years. A true Renaissance man for the 1980s, the title character (played by Peter Weller) is a world-famous neurosurgeon, particle physicist, tech company CEO, samurai, and of course part-time rock star. He leads a band of scientists and inventors called Team Banzai who are also known as the Hong Kong Cavaliers when they moonlight as crime-fighters in their downtime between dangerous experiments and concert gigs. Buckaroo is the inspiration for a comic book popular with children around the globe, and if he ever needs extra help, scores of civilian volunteers called the Blue Blazer Regulars stand ready to jump into his adventures at a moment’s notice. Basically, he’s the coolest guy on Earth and everybody loves him.
While personally testing a rocket car that can hurtle 500 mph on land and phase through solid matter, Buckaroo drives straight through a mountain and crosses into the 8th Dimension, a surreal landscape of flashing lights that is also a prison for alien invaders who once tried (and failed) to conquer Earth. His successful return draws the attention of Dr. Emilio Lizardo (John Lithgow), a former scientist turned cackling madman who’d once made a similar trip, only to become possessed by the consciousness of an evil megalomaniac called Lord John Whorfin, who now wants to steal Banzai’s rocket car, use it to set his army free, and then retake his homeworld Planet Ten.
Assisting Banzai are steadfast sidekicks New Jersey (Jeff Goldblum, wearing 1920s silent movie cowboy duds for some reason never explained), Perfect Tommy (Lewis Smith, who’d been in Southern Comfort a few years earlier), and Rawhide (Clancy Brown in one of his first prominent roles before his breakthrough in Highlander). Ellen Barkin is love interest Penny Priddy, who happens to be the long-lost identical twin of Buckaroo’s dead wife.
After John Whorfin, other evil Red Lectroid aliens include John O’Connor (Vincent Schiavelli), John Gomez (Dan Hedaya), and the hilariously-named John Bigbooté (Christopher Lloyd). Meanwhile, friendly John Parker (Carl Lumbly, playing his Black Lectroid alien with an exaggerated Rastafarian accent) arrives from Planet Ten to give Buckaroo some helpful advice. Yes, all the aliens are called “John” – again, never explained. Aside from Lithgow, the rest spend most of their time under heavy rubber mask makeup.
For all that, I’ve barely even begun to catalog the movie’s many oddities and downright bizarre affectations.
Yeah, it’s a lot. A. Lot.
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai was directed by another screenwriter, W.D. Richter (of Philip Kaufman’s 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake), who didn’t actually write this one. At least, he isn’t credited with writing any of it. Richter would quickly go back to writing on John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China next, and would only direct one more feature in his career, the 1991 time travel fantasy Late for Dinner.
Richter probably should have stuck to writing all along. Aside from its general incomprehensibility, which really isn’t as much of a detriment as it sounds like, the film’s biggest failings are mostly the fault of lackluster execution. The pacing is slack, the humor is far too deadpan for its own good, and (beyond the catchy main theme) the musical score is mostly monotonous. A movie bursting at the seams with so many bonkers ideas should never feel dull, but that’s exactly what happens here. A more experienced or more inventive director might have tightened this up and made the creativity that was obviously poured onto the page also explode onto the screen. I regret to say that Richter wasn’t the guy to do that.
Needless to say, Buckaroo Banzai flopped at the theatrical box office and was quickly shuffled off to cable and the bottom shelf of video rental stores. Somehow, remarkably, it didn’t fade into obscurity. Despite its issues and disappointments, the movie is so defiantly unique and off-the-wall that it eventually grew into a cult item over time anyway. Today, for as many viewers as will simply dismiss the whole thing as a bunch of screwy gibberish, it also has many passionate defenders who adore it unconditionally.
For my part, I don’t think I’ve ever reached quite that level of fandom. Every time I watch the movie, I’m left wanting it to be just a little bit better at what it’s trying to do – a little snappier and wittier and more cohesive. All the same, I remain fascinated by it. Buckaroo Banzai has so many interesting elements working in its favor that even its failure to bring them together is endearing.
The Blu-ray
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai was first released on Blu-ray back in 2015 by Arrow Video, as a Region B-locked edition for the UK market. A comparable Region A copy followed a year later from Shout! Factory in the United States. I believe that one shares the same a/v master, but I wound up with a copy of the UK disc as part of a sale from the Arrow Video web site. (My Blu-ray player can handle discs from either region.)
Text on the back of Arrow’s Blu-ray case suggests that the master was provided by MGM. It looks dated, and probably originated with the DVD in 2002. I doubt it was ever scanned from the camera negative. The 2.35:1 image is quite grainy and flat, with recurring minor dirt and speckles. Some light electronic sharpening has the unwanted consequence of making the grain look really noisy. Colors are adequate but bloom on occasion (especially reds), and contrast is drab.
The disc isn’t unwatchable, but it’s decidedly underwhelming. The movie has enough of a cult audience that I wouldn’t be too surprised if a 4K edition came along eventually, but even a remastered Blu-ray could look better than this.
Per Arrow’s standard practices, the disc defaults to a PCM 2.0 soundtrack even though a 5.1 option (in DTS-HD Master Audio) is also provided. I expect the 5.1 track also came straight from MGM, and the 2.0 might be a downmix from it. I switched back-and-forth between them a little and the two sound more similar than not to my ears. I came out slightly preferring the 5.1 version, as dialogue sounds a little hollow in the 2.0 mix. Neither sounds all that spectacular, but the movie’s lackluster sound design may be the root cause of that.
Bonus features start with an audio commentary from director W.D. Richter and screenwriter Earl Mac Rauch. That’s followed by interviews with Peter Weller and John Lithgow, a making-of featurette (23 min.), a 2011 Q&A screening hosted by Kevin Smith (44 min.), a visual essay by critic Matt Zoller Seitz (18 min.), an alternate opening and deleted scenes, a textless copy of the end credits sequence, an animated proof-of-concept video made in 1998 for a proposed TV series spinoff that never came to fruition, an audio interview with the studio publicist (10 min.), a teaser trailer, and an image gallery.
Related
- W.D. Richter (director/writer) + Jeff Goldblum (star)
- Peter Weller (star)
- Christopher Lloyd (star)
- More Jeff Goldblum
The Video File Blog 
This movie basically defines for me, what it was like to be a 12-yr-old kid in 1984. So much cool stuff came out that year. My friend had the comic book tie-in, I recall.
I have the older BD and am the only one in the family that will watch it. The whole movie is bonkers and I love every minute of it.
You forgot to comment on the “Buckaroo Bonzai will return to fight the World Crime League” tag at the end of the credits. I for one was ready for the sequel.
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