Have you ever watched "E.T." and thought to yourself, "This movie is good and all but it could really use more obvious product placement and even weirder looking aliens?" Enter "Mac And Me", a movie made six years after "E.T." that seems to have come into existence solely because Coke, Skittles, Sears, and McDonald's paid heaps of money to be prominently featured in it. Appropriately, mac and cheese was part of what we ate for dinner and we had a pre-movie feature from the 1960s about the dangers of marijuana and heroin. They really should have discussed the dangers of Coke because the aliens in this story are clearly addicted by the end of the film.On another planet, a family of aliens who wiggle awkwardly and have circular mouths that never close find their way onto a NASA contraption and are brought to Earth. The littlest one gets separated from his parents and ends up going home with a family consisting of a mom who works at Sears, the nearly-mulleted older brother, and the younger brother in a wheelchair. For an unreasonable amount of time, the younger brother and their similarly-aged neighbor try to figure out what all the weird stuff going on in the house is caused by when they discover Mac (mysterious alien creature). During this time we learn that he's a destructive little shit who can shoot electricity from his hands but he does save the boy after his wheelchair goes rolling off a cliff, which he really should have died from. They discover that he only likes Coke and Skittles and they make it their mission to help him get back to his family. The boy dresses him like the world's most frightening teddy bear and takes him to McDonalds where there's a crazy synchronized dance party going down with Ronald McDonald. He leaves with his brother, the neighbor girl, and the girl's older sister and they find the alien family in a cave close to death. But what can they do to revive this alien species they know nothing about? Give them a Coke. Towards the end, the boy is injured trying to save them from the government agents who want them dead and it's clear the aliens will need to bring him back to life with their electricity hands. After so many stupid, cliche plot points, Kay announced, "If that boy walks, I do." Turns out, their magic alien powers can bring him back to life but not fix his paraplegia but the movie still ends with the insanity of the aliens taking their vows as American citizens. In the last shot, a cartoon bubble appears on the screen threatening, "We'll be back!" Mercifully, a sequel does not exist.
This movie is hilarious. The aliens are a constant source of unintentional humor, the product placement is so blatant that you can't help but laugh, there's incongruously upbeat music on occasion, the acting is weak, and the cliff fall scene I mentioned earlier is the height of accidental comedy. It was similar in feel to "To Catch A Yeti" but while we did laugh a lot, we weren't quite in the gasping-for-air hysterics that we were in with that movie. Still, for bad movie watchers, this one should be a requirement.
Quotes:
"Isn't he too old for a teddy?"
"He's from Illinois."
[one Sears employee to another]
"How long have you been in lingerie?"
Spoon Rating: 8
Adam's Grandma's Review: "I liked it. I think it was a 9."
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