LogFAQs > #984466698

Inviso:
Have you ever seen E.T.? I havent, yet by watching this film, I feel like Ive practically seen E.T. in its entirety, since it pretty much copies EVERY cultural touchstone that the original classic (that, again, Ive never seen) is known for. And holy shit does this movie feel like a blatant cash grab as a result of its complete creative bankruptcy. However, this is not a bad thing; this list is meant to highlight movies that are bad, but become SO bad they loop back around to being hilarious. Through sheer incompetence (or perhaps just not giving a shit), Mac and Me manages to create a ripoff of E.T. that lacks ANY of the heart from the original film, while spawning nightmare fuel in the meantime.

E.T. the alien is not visually appealing, but its ugly in the way a pug is uglyto the point that it loops back around to being kind of cute. Mac (Mysterious Alien Creature, because even with his product placement name, its still ripping off E.T.) is not pug ugly. Mac and his family are these humanoid, flesh-colored monstrosities that are JUST normal enough that they look like deformed humans rather than aliens. And they spend the entire movie wandering around naked, which is disturbing to me on a personal level (particularly since two of the aliensMac and his sisterare effectively children-sized). For whatever reasonthe producers thought this would be aesthetically appealing toANYONE. I hope whoever greenlighted that decision was fired.

But yeah, were introduced to these hideous aliens on a moon of Saturn, where a NASA probe touches down and manages to vacuum up all four aliens of the family into their sample case. Bad late eighties special effects, surebut even THAT is stupid. You couldnt even have the aliens just crash land or something? You HAD to have them effectively kidnapped by NASA? And then when the probe gets back to Earth, the aliens break out and escape. WellI say escapethe parents and the sister just leave, unimpeded. Mac, meanwhile, is chased and hunted down by government agents, becoming a fucking rubber toy that gets splattered onto a highway and causing a hilariously over-the-top crash sequence, complete with a pick-up truck ramping off one car to crash into another. That whole sequence is insanely stupid and kind of fun in its campiness.

This introduces us to our main cast, where Mac sneaks into a family van as theyre driving across country to move into their new home in California. Where are they from? Why, Chicago. Its subtle, but you pick up the hints along the way. Likethe fact that Eric (main child character) is always wearing a Bears jersey, Cubs jersey, Bears hat, Cubs hat, lot of Chicago sports team posters on his walls. Just REALLY advertising Chicago athletics. And beyond product placement for the city of Chicago (whichits not even like you couldnt have chosen a different cityChicago has no plot relevance on its own), you also get immediate product placement for Coca-Cola . Mac winds up stealing Erics Coke , which causes an argument in the car because he wanted that Coke SO BAD. And sothe great product placement showcase begins.

Now, I will fully acknowledge that the first half of the movie is not GREAT. Even by so bad its good standards, its not all that enjoyable, because its largely BAD child actors acting out a plot that is so stupid and poorly-written that I cant, in good conscience, approve of it. Heres the thing: Mac makes his presence known to the neighbor girl across the street, and then to Ericpretty early on in the film. Yet the writing still needs to maintain that the mother and older brother are oblivious for FAR longer than makes any sense. Seriously, Macs powers involve being able to bloom plantlife, and he converts the familys new living room into a meadowand the mother sleepily dismisses this as the kids having done something? Its dumb, and I think the mom is probably the part of the film that annoyed me the most.

However, there are some GOOFY moments in this early half of the movienamely the famous wheelchair hill scene. Yeah, E.T. had a lot of bike riding, particularly while fleeing government agentsso to replicate that, Mac and Me cast a wheelchair bound child who could roll around at the speed of sound with places to go and a need to follow his rainbow. While looking for Mac, Eric winds up heading through his backyard, to a hill that leads down to an unprotected cliff and a pool of water down below. And in a moment of cinematic beauty, the audience gets to watch a terrified child lose control of his wheelchair, careen down this hill, hilariously fall off the cliff in a shot of this wheelchair just dropping like a stone, and then splash into the water below. Thank God that pool was there, or this could have gone much, MUCH worse.

I think the point where the film hits it stride and becomes so dumb that it turns hilarious thoughis the vacuum scene. In E.T., theres a whole deal with leaving a trail of Reeses Pieces for E.T. to follow (I thinkagain, never seen it). So what does Mac and Me do? Well, its advertising Coca-Cola , so Eric sets a trap where he leaves cups of Coke around, with a trail of strawswhich is the dumbest plot point imaginable. LikeReeses Pieces make sensetheyre individual foodstuffs. A straw is a straw, and even if its meant to guide from one cup of Coke to anotherlike, youve already had blatant SKITTLES product placement in the movie (theres a whole scene with Eric holding a bag of Skittles in his lap, and theyre on his nightstand later on). Just use SKITTLES .

But I digressthe point is this all leads to the kids capturing Mac in a vacuum cleaner, with the same shitty graphics from the opening scene, but Mac in the vacuum goes crazy, and we get to watch a little girl (who seems to turn into a dummy) getting spun and flipped around a room with reckless abandon. Its so goofy and unnecessarily wacky that this is the scene where the film starts to become hilarious in just how stupid it can get. From this point on, were looking at absolute comedy gold, but not the kind of comedy the producers were trying to create.

The best scene in the movie is soon after Mac is captured and revealed to Eric, his friend, and his brother. Everyone except the mom is in on the secret, but this is also when the government finally shows up to investigate and try to hunt down Mac. To prevent Mac from getting caught, Eric stuffs him into the skin of an old teddy bear, and takes him to a birthday party for kids thatI feel like he would not know. If Im understanding the movies timeline, Eric has lived in this new city for like, three days, and already he has been told to attend a party, AND given a birthday gift to pass off as his own. Its dumb, but its all in service of the ultimate product placement centerpiece of the film.