Mac and Me (1988)

User Rating:

2.9/10   

Director:

Stewart Raffill

Writers (WGA):

Stewart Raffill (written by) and
Steve Feke (written by)

Release Date:

12 August 1988 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Family | Fantasy | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

How two boys worlds apart become the best of friends.

Plot:

A Mysterious Alien Creature (MAC ?) trying to escape from NASA is befriended by a young boy in a wheel chair. |

Plot Keywords:

Alien | Family Relationships | Brother Sister Relationship | Disguise | Dancing

Awards:

2 wins & 6 nominations

Cast

Christine Ebersole	...	Janet Cruise
Jonathan Ward	...	Michael Cruise
Tina Caspary	...	Courtney (as Katrina Caspary)
Lauren Stanley	...	Debbie
Jade Calegory	...	Eric Cruise
Vinnie Torrente	...	Mitford
Martin West	...	Wickett
Ivan J. Rado	...	Zimmerman
Danny Cooksey	...	Jack Jr
Laura Waterbury	...	Linda
Jack Eiseman	...	Splatter Car Driver
Barbara Allyne-Bennet	...	Scientist
Richard Bravo	...	Mover #1
Gary Brockette	...	Doctor #2
Sherri Stone Butler	...	Checkout Girl

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Philippines:G | Iceland:L | USA:PG (certificate #29165) | Argentina:Atp | Australia:PG

Filming Locations:

City of Industry, California, USA

Company:

Mac and Me Joint Venture

Trivia:

Coca Cola and McDonalds backed the movie, thus the numerous references to both of those products.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When the little girl sucks Mac into the vacuum and gets flung around the room, the track that goes up the wall, across the ceiling, down the other wall and across the floor is visible for the entire scene.

Quotes:

Singer: tired of feeling all by myself Being so different From everyone else Somehow you knew I needed your help Be my friend forever I never found My star in the night Feeling my dream was Far from my sight You came along and I saw the light We'll be friends...

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Robot Chicken: 1987 (#2.6)" (2006)

Soundtrack:

You Knew What You Were Doing (Every Inch Of The Way)

A Brave Effort from our Capitalist Comrades!

As is to be expected, in the wake of the very successful E.T., some massively derivative imitators were released. In '86 Flight of the Navigator used Paul Reubens' Pee-wee Herman voice as that of an alien ship which befriends a boy who just wants to get home. To be sure that was a smarmy, 2nd-hand effort. But by far, the other much worse product came with 1988's "Mac and Me." This was so much more appalling, that "Navigator" was instantly blown out of everyone's collective memory. Mac and Me is so heinous that it could melt the brains of the unborn.

Remarkably, the movie is so burdened by wall-to-wall garbazh, that stealing the entire plot of another movie could be the least of it's problems.

An unrelated movie, called "East Side Story," came out in 1997. It's a sort of "That's Entertainment!" of Soviet era propagandistic musical numbers on topics as naff as productivity objectives, living in a workers paradise, ideological purity, etc.. Mmmm... delicious! That's what you get when the machinery of state has no natural competitors. But "Mac and Me" is what capitalism would be bringing you morning, noon and night if powerful fans of ca$h never had their avarice checked by people who know better; critics and people with taste. As one cynical remark goes: If Thomas Edison had an MBA he would have just kept making larger candles.

This speed-course in half-assed, capitalist film-making includes, as noted, a plot lifted intact from a more successful movie (Why reinvent the wheel?), takes the form of a 90 minute McDonalds commercial (You want to lose 90 minutes of selling time?), interrupted by Coke commercials, has an alien that looks like a 4 dollar rubber fetus (because it is a 4 dollar rubber fetus), a (sym)pathetic hero in a wheelchair, and a script produced after sniffing the finest glue one could buy at the 99 cent store. Did $omebody $ay MAC-Donald$?

Somehow the execs didn't imagine we'd notice the endless shilling, maybe 200 percent more than in a typical movie, while taking their express-elevator ride to profit hell. So let's acknowledge these brave geniuses, who strived to make capitalism safe for uh... more capitalism, by name so they make it into the history books; Producers Mark Damon, William B. Kerr, and R.J. Louis; AND so this review is inescapably linked to their names in internet search results.

Of course there are questions that capitalism does't answer. Why do the aliens heads look like human scrotums? Why do they walk like babies with a load in their diapers? Why do they like whistling the first few notes of "Happy Trails (to you)?"

This is the lowest point in movie history, in any country, ever. Whoever would try to displace this as the "Worst Movie Ever Made" must first use it as a checklist to make sure their movie fails as spectacularly in as many places.