First unleashed upon an unsuspecting (and largely uncaring) public in 1984, “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension” has become one of those weird little movies that has more than paid for itself over the years (and gained a legion of fans), through its video release. Its release on DVD is long overdue.
Basically, the concept of “Buckaroo Banzai” is “Doc Savage on hallucinogens”, but the performances by the entire cast, the delicious direction by W.D. Richter, and the sly script by Earl Mac Rauch combine to provide a highly entertaining, if absurdly skewed reality.
The plot, which centers around the efforts of John Worfin to return his followers to Planet Ten, isn’t all that complex, although it features a few interesting twists. Buckaroo and his Hong Kong Cavaliers are called to action because of prompting from an outside agency – they are given the option of preventing Worfin from succeeding, or seeing their world destroyed. Talk about motivation!
Peppered with odd action sequences and terrific dialogue (“Why is there a watermelon there?” “I’ll tell you later.”), the film is a veritible kinetic kaleidescope of sights and sounds.
Peter Weller is as perfectly understated (for the most part) as the enigmatic Dr. Buckaroo Banzai (brain surgeon, quantum physicist, guitarist/pianist/ fluegelhornist) as John Lithgow is *overstated* as John Worfin (a ‘Red Lectroid” who has resided within the body of Professor Emilio Lizardo for several decades).
Reliable veterans Jeff Goldblum, Clancy Brown, Ellen Barkin, Christopher Lloyd, Vincent Schiavelli, Matt Clark and others, add their considerable talents to helping this peculiar piece take on a believeability that belies its patent absurdity.
This ‘Special Edition’ comes with a good number of extras, all set up around the conceit that Buckaroo Banzai and his Banzai Institute actually exist.
For some, this might become a bit much over the course of exploring the various features, but most of Banzai’s fans (Blue Blaze Irregulars) will love it.
The DVD brings to the general public, for the first time, the film’s original opening – a ‘home movie’ of Banzai’s fifth birthday, a day that begins with joy and ends in sorrow. This opening can be viewed as a separate feature or as part of the reconfigured film. The only problem with watching the film with its original opening, is that the director’s commentary doesn’t kick in until about a minute *past* the opening, and then, it kicks in in the middle of a sentence – by which time, crucial information concerning the conceit of the commentary is missed.
As for the commentary, itself, W.D. Richter provides the usual highly informative filmmaking details (and anecdotes) while writer Earl Mac Rauch contributes little known details about the *real* Hong Kong Cavaliers in the persona of the *real* Reno Nevada. (The film is referred to as a docudrama!).
Other cool features include the usual photo gallery, character profiles and deleted scene archives (14 scenes, to be precise), but one of the big highlights is “Pinky Carruthers’ Unknown Facts” – for this feature, the film plays normally, while subtitles provide “facts” from Pinky Carruthers’ Collection of 47,000 Unknown Facts. Often informative, this feature is also pretty darned funny (Unknown Fact #8,506: Rawhide’s fave song: “Anything that ends in a C note.”; “Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable.” – B. Banzai).
Another lovely feature, that ties in with the idea that the film is a docudrama, is an interview from Banzai Radio, with Terry ‘Silver Fox’ Erdmann who worked on the film’s pubicity (it’s followed by an announcement that the next segmentof the program will feature an interview with a character who supposedly died in the film!).
There’s the usual short documentary on the film and its characters (“Buckaroo Banzai Declassified”) and “Jet Car All Access”, in which we learn everything anyone could want to know about Banzai’s dimension-hopping vehicle (designed and built by Perfect Tommy, of course…).
The “Banzai Institute Archives” include Technical Data, a “Movie Archive” and “Historical Archives” (which is where you’ll find the Terry Erdmann Banzai Radio interview).
There’s even a “Jet Car Trailer” that was used to show how CGI could help in the production of a “Buckaroo Banzai” TV series!
One section that eluded me, was the “Enhanced Nuon Features (Can Play On Nuon-Enhanced DVD Players)”, but you can’t have everything.
As a film, “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension” is a marvel and a delight. This special Edition DVD really does it justice.
Film: A
Features: A- (Loses points for the “Nuon-Enhanced Features”)