Newsweek, United States edition, pg. 75 August 20, 1984 A High Wire in Outer Space By David Ansen

This much can be said for sure: Buckaroo Banzai himself (Peter Weller) is a neurosurgeon/rock singer/scientist/culture hero surrounded by a team of adventurer/musicians who call themselves the Hong Kong Cavaliers. Buckaroo has invented a jet car that passes through solid matter into the 8th dimension. But while performing this feat he encounters some evil aliens from planet 10. The good aliens from 10 -- who appear to humans as Rastafarians -- are prepared to destroy the earth to stop the bad ones from returning home. The villain of the piece is a mad Italian scientist named Dr. Emilio Lizardo (John Lithgow), who is actually the alien Lord John Whorfin. It should also be mentioned that the aliens first arrived in 1938 in Grover's Mills, N.J., as reported by Orson Welles in his famous "War of the Worlds" broadcast, and that Welles was hypnotized by the planet 10ers, who made him say it was a hoax.

Working from an antic hipster screenplay by Earl Mac Rauch, first-time director W. D. Richter is trying for a kind of cool, throwaway freak show that commingles "Dr. Strangelove," "M*A*S*H," "Superman" and underground comix. It doesn't quite jell. The movie -- which needs a more stylish look than Fred J. Koenekamp's rather cheesy photography provides -- is a riot of clever notions competing with each other for space. The filmmakers, who have compiled book-length production notes to explain the elaborate mythology of Banzai, take an obvious delight in their creations but often leave the audience in the dark. The film is overstuffed with tantalizing detail but bizarrely stingy about setting up its main characters. Richter and Rauch don't want to be bothered with movie basics; they want to soar directly to the lunatic fringes. But they pay a price: the scenes don't stick in the mind. Many wonderful comic ideas get wasted because they're not properly set up.

Orbit: Still, a movie with an overabundance of invention is a welcome anomaly these days. There are so many good performers in "Buckaroo Banzai" that you wish the movie had time to hang out with them more. Jeff Goldblum, as a surgeon in a red cowboy outfit who calls himself New Jersey, revs up for comic action and has nowhere to go. A platinum-dyed Lewis Smith, as sidekick Perfect Tommy, cuts an intriguing but all too enigmatic figure. The love interest, who turns out to be the identical-twin sister of Buckaroo's former wife, is played by Ellen Barkin, who makes a terrific entrance only to be relegated to a plot convenience. Christopher Lloyd, Pepe Serna, Clancy Brown and Carl Lumbly all make the most of catch-as-catch-can parts. Even Peter Weller has to struggle to make an imprint, for superhero Buckaroo's qualities are more assumed than demonstrated by the rather cavalier screenplay. On the other hand, Dr. Lizardo is a madman that Lithgow can really sink his rotten teeth into, and the movie flies into comic orbit whenever he's on the scene. "Buckaroo Banzai" may not "work," but that's the risk of high-wire acts. At least it's up there trying.

GRAPHIC: Picture, Lithgow, Weller: A mad scientist, a neurosurgeon superhero and Rastafarian

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