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THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI: ACROSS THE EIGHTH DIMENSION
Rating: 
USA. 1984.
Director – W.D. Richter, Screenplay – Earl MacRauch, Producer – Richter & Neil Canton, Photography – Fred Koenekamp, Music – Michael Boddicker, Visual Effects – Michael Fink, Animated Visual Effects – VCE Inc (Supervisor – Peter Kuran), Makeup – Tom Burman, Production Design – J. Michael Riva. Production Company – Sherwood Productions.
Cast:
Peter Weller (Buckaroo Banzai), John Lithgow (Dr Emilio Lizardo), Ellen Barkin (Penny Priddy), Jeff Goldblum (New Jersey), Lewis Smith (Perfect Tommy), Clancy Brown (Rawhide), Christopher Lloyd (John Bigboote), Carl Lumbly (John Parker), Robert Ito (Professor Hikita), Matt Clark (Secretary of Defense), Pepe Serna (Reno), Billy Vera (Pinky Carruthers), Ronald Lacey (President Widmark), Vincent Schiavelli (John O’Connor)
Plot: Neurosurgeon, rock star, comic book hero and crimefighter Buckaroo Banzai follows his lengthy list of accomplishments by using his invention of an experimental fusion overdrive unit to drive a car through a mountainside into the eighth dimension. But at the press conference afterwards, Buckaroo is interrupted by a call from the Black Lectoids from the Planet Ten in an orbiting spaceship, who give him an electric shock that enables him to see the presence of several invading Red Lectoids disguised in the audience. The Red Lectoids, who all have the first name John, want to steal the fusion overdrive unit so that they can return to the eighth dimension, having been stranded on Earth since 1938, arriving during the Orson Welles ‘War of the Worlds’ broadcast, using the hysteria to help cover their arrival. The Black Lectoids now threaten to detonate all nuclear strike systems from orbit unless Buckaroo helps stop the Red Lectoids from returning to the Eight Dimension.
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension is an object lesson in how to create an instant cult film. Buckaroo Banzai fulfills all the requirements of a cult film – it is really eccentric, it was a commercial failure, it instantly received a fan clique – but without it ever actually being a particularly good film. It’s like a Doc Savage story updated with a hip attitude that lets it play the absurdities of all the heroic poses up in po-faced deadpan. The film is loaded with wall-to-wall incongruities and throwaway non-sequitirs.
But herein lies the fault – what one gets is mostly a private gag that keeps on running oblivious to its audience. Narrative and drama are entirely lost in the continual escalation of complicity and seemingly the introduction of a new subplot every five minutes, not helped by director W.D. Richter’s insistence on having all its character’s rabbiting away at their dialogue with rapid-fire simultaneous banter. But in all of this, the action is so constricted it never gets the opportunity to open up and be superheroic.
One joy however is the performance of John Lithgow, who goes full tilt with all the wild eye-rolling, giggling megalomania and mouth-pinched muttering he can muster. One expects similar things in the casting of Christopher Lloyd who tends to specialize in these type of roles, but who instead remains entirely anonymous under one of Tom Burman’s unconvincing rubber masks. Peter Weller plays with just the right degree of deadpan heroic stature and a cheeky Ellen Barkin is well paired up against him.
The film optimistically announced a sequel, Buckaroo Banzai vs the World Crime League, on its end credits but despite a dedicated fan following such has never emerged. The recent years also saw rumours of a possible Buckaroo Banzai tv series but neither has this emerged.
Director W.D. Richter has worked on a number of other genre films. He delivered the scripts for Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), the Frank Langella Dracula (1979), John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China (1986), the Stephen King adaptation Needful Things (1993) and the sf/action film Stealth (2005), as well as directed the fine cryogenic sleeper awakes film Late for Dinner (1991). Screenwriter Earl MacRauch had previously written Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York (1977), the Sean S. Cunningham thriller A Stranger is Watching (1982) and went onto the gonzo John Belushi biopic Wired (1989).
Copyright Richard Scheib 1990
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