Pop Culture Movies and More: Mac and Me (1988)

A young extraterrestrial, separated from its family and stranded on Earth escapes from NASA into an unknown environment. He meets a boy in a wheelchair who helps him in this trying time in a story where two boys worlds apart become the best of friends. Mac and Me is quite an infamous title that I'm sure most people know of, even if they haven't watched it. Taking a simple look at it gives you everything you would possibly need to know about it. This film is at its foremost, an E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) knock-off, and frankly, a terrible one at that. The amount of parallels and straight-up scene-for-scene copies between the two products is painfully obvious. However, they take it one further by throwing heaps of product placements at you in what could be a devised method to distract us, viewers, from the close similarities. Now there are plenty of reviews out there with most being as harsh as you would expect but, in all honesty, this is a film I would probably deem as so bad it's good, although that's not to say all of it is 'good'. The best way I'd describe this movie would be as some kind of fever dream. You spend so much of your time questioning what is going on, or simply reality itself, as so many bizarre moments befall us in this adventure. The story opens on a distant planet being observed by a robot from NASA that accidentally sucks up an alien family where it departs back for Earth. Escaping the contraption the family is separated from one child, who manages to escape into a passing vehicle during the search. This car belongs to the Cruise family made up of mother Janet, and her sons the older Michael and youngest Eric, who are on their way to their new home. Unbeknownst to them, a stowaway is aboard. Once at their home, Eric begins to notice some peculiar things and despite his efforts, no one will believe him, that is except for the neighbour's youngest member, Debbie. As you can imagine, hijinks ensue as they attempt to capture the creature to prove its existence with traps, but to no avail. However, once finally caught, Michael believes them and helps to keep him secret from the mother and those hunting him as they band together with Debbie's older sister, Courtney, to find Mac's family. Does some of this sound a little familiar yet? To top it off, they recreate some of E.T.'s iconic moments, like the sequence where they are chased down the road on bikes. They do the same thing but with Eric in his wheelchair. Now, the actor for Eric, Jade Calegory, has spina bifida and uses a wheelchair in real life. In a way, I was happy he got a chance to appear in a leading role in a movie with his condition, although it is a shame it had to be this one. When this movie isn't attempting to tell its own 'original' story, we spend the majority of that time being hammered with product placement that is so in your face, that I'm surprised it didn't break through the screen and into my hand. We see plenty throughout, like Coca-Cola, Skittles and most especially, McDonald's. There is a dedicated segment spent in one where (and I am deadly serious when I say this) everyone gets up and dances, joined by Mac disguised as a teddy bear who everyone thinks is a special toy. I honestly cringed when it came on. I cannot help but physically crawl into a ball, it is unbelievable, and it only gets worse when Ronald McDonald shows his face. The remainder of the story centres on finding Mac's family to reunite them all, whilst fending off the humans who want to shoot first. My favourite part has to be the ending, which is mind-boggling madness with the aliens becoming citizens before driving off in their pink car. I sat in complete disbelief that only furthered with an ending note, 'We'll Be Back!', which in fact, they didn't, as it never happened. Overall, Mac and Me spends too much time copying its story, ripping scenes from E.T. and shoving products down your throat. I was able to have fun with it and plenty of laughs (mostly in scenes not intending to be funny), but, at the end of the day, it is still a bad movie, which I know many would agree upon. It's an important movie in the world of cinema for all the wrong reasons. I'd recommend checking out E.T. for the grander experience.