Craig J. Clark
There’s a moment an hour into The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension where Buckaroo and his Hong Kong Cavaliers are searching the Banzai Institute for alien intruders after his latest invention, the Oscillation Overthruster. While checking out the physics wing, newest recruit New Jersey spies a watermelon in an industrial press, somehow not being smashed to pieces. “Why is there a watermelon there?” he asks Reno Nevada, the Cavalier he’s paired up with. “I’ll tell you later,” Reno responds. Only there is no later. Buckaroo Banzai’s fast-moving plot is such that there’s simply no time to stop and explain every inexplicable thing that happens in it. In its own peculiar way, the watermelon is the film: under intense pressure and seemingly impossible to crack, but rewarding for those who choose to probe its mysteries.
When Buckaroo Banzai was released in late summer 1984, it entered a field already crowded by the likes of Ghostbusters, Purple Rain, Revenge of the Nerds, The Karate Kid, and Gremlins. Its opening weekend was dominated by Red Dawn, which topped the charts while Buckaroo Banzai languished at the bottom, pulling in less than $1 million in the 236 theaters it was allotted its first week in limited release. It never went wider, but somehow stayed in circulation through December, racking up a domestic gross of $6.25 million – respectable numbers for an oddball movie tailor-made for a cult audience that was miraculously given enough time to find it.
The brainchild of director W.D. Richter (making his debut after a decade as a screenwriter) and writer Earl Mac Rauch, Buckaroo Banzai exists in a world teeming with Buckaroo Banzai video games, comic books, and records, as well as fans congregating outside his compound at all hours, hoping to catch a glimpse of their hero. It also comes equipped with a once-in-a-lifetime cast, headed by Peter Weller (three years away from his career-defining role as Murphy in RoboCop) as the title character, who can go from performing a delicate brain operation to testing an experimental jet car to playing a club date with his band – all in the space of one hectic day. His seemingly charmed life has also been touched by tragedy, including the deaths of his parents (in the original opening, which got axed) and his wife, but he refuses to be a tragic figure. For Buckaroo, every day is an opportunity for adventure, and the people he gathers around him must be of the same mind.
The latest addition to his entourage is Sidney Zweibel, a neurosurgeon played by Jeff Goldblum (two years away from his career-defining role as Seth Brundle in The Fly). Recruited mid-surgery, Sidney (who goes by New Jersey since the Hong Kong Cavaliers all use aliases) acts as the audience’s surrogate, as it’s through him that Richter and Rauch reveal the inner workings of the Banzai Institute. The other outsider is Ellen Barkin’s Penny Priddy, who disrupts Buckaroo’s club date (inspiring the film’s most famous line, “No matter where you go, there you are”) and turns out to be the long-lost twin sister of his dead wife Peggy. This earns her a spot in his inner circle and at the hastily called press conference where Buckaroo and his team reveal the existence of the Oscillation Overthruster to the world.
Unfortunately for Buckaroo (and the world), using the Overthruster to break the dimension barrier by driving his jet car through a mountain draws the attention of Lord John Whorfin, a Red Lectroid from Planet Ten who possessed the body of Italian physicist Dr. Emilio Lizardo (John Lithgow, chewing every piece of scenery not nailed down) during an earlier attempt to reach the eighth dimension. Aiding Whorfin is a trio of Lectroids played by Christopher Lloyd (one year away from his career-defining role as Doc Brown in Back to the Future), Vincent Schiavelli, and Dan Hedaya, who are still recognizable when their alien countenances are revealed.
Any attempt to further unpack the plot would be a fool’s errand, but suffice it to say, after some setbacks – and an ultimatum from another group of aliens prepared to destroy the Earth to prevent Whorfin’s escape – Buckaroo and his Cavaliers (whose ranks also include genre vets Clancy Brown and Pepe Serna) take the fight to the Red Lectroids and win the day, earning a well-deserved victory lap in the process. It’s an upbeat ending designed to send audiences out into the world singing Buckaroo Banzai’s praises and whistling its theme song.
This sense of positivity is part of what makes this film so appealing to its longtime fans. No matter how desperate things get, the good guys are out there fighting the good fight, doing their part to restore order – and dropping a quotable line or three along the way. As bewildering as it may be for those encountering it for the first time, there’s an infectious joy in seeing Buckaroo Banzai and His Hong Kong Cavaliers (and Richter and Rauch) pull it off, seemingly by the seat of their pants.
Alas, Buckaroo Banzai’s “next adventure” (Against the World Crime League) never saw the light of a movie projector, but Rauch finally got around to telling it in book form in 2021. In the meantime, Buckaroo Banzai took its place as the supreme cult film by being the first release in Shout! Factory’s Shout Selects series in 2016, but that edition has since fallen out of print. Must be the work of monkey-boys.
“The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension” is streaming on Prime and a number of ad-supported platforms.
