My good friend Jim Brittain commented at the foot of my recent review of the ‘film’ Battleship (2012) about a flick he thought even worse.  A movie named Biodome starring Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin from 1996.  Well I am up for a challenge and it makes a fine break from work to watch terrible films so once my copy arrived by digital file I set about watching Biodome.  I did this before reading any of the online reviews so that I would have my own opinion.

The online reviews range from bad to really bad to apocalyptic atrocious.  So no bonuses there, turns out it really is universally loathed by the film community.  But what did I think?

I would say first off that this is a ‘buddy’ or a ‘stoner’ film and that should count for something such as I am sure that teens of the time and those of a more challenged intellectual view now would enjoy this movie.  Its a slapstick, its cruel and its slow too; made for those who are in the mood for such things.  I was a teen when this film came out but I did not see it then.  The plot is fairly simple, two losers (Shore and Baldwin) are dumped by their airhead enviro-saving girlfriends which forces to them to go to the site of the Biodome project.  Biodome is a sealed environment which will see four scientists spend a year inside it living with nature.  This sort of stuff was big in the 1990’s.  Of course those meant to go inside do not and the two losers do instead.  Hilarity ensues yes? ….well…no.

The journey to the Biodome is a mini road trip that just makes you loath the two main characters.  Especially Pauly Shore as he is either a poorer actor than Baldwin in that he cannot act ‘stupid enough’ or his character is just a manipulative weasel who effectively goads and tortures his friend while the two of them do nothing but spout crap constantly.    Once they are trapped in the Biodome with the four true scientists for the year long experiment (including Kylie Minogue in one of her ‘wilderness years’ roles, she also dated Shore for a while) one of the scientists describes the two loses as ‘Generation X Road Kill on the Superhighway of Tomorrow’ and that sort of sums them up.   Being stuck in the Biodomee sees the two losers torture each other and the scientists and also try a bit of ‘sexual assault’ for fun.  They hear nothing, they remember nothing, they respect nothing and no one; they are cretins.  None of the gags they carry out in the dome are funny, they are just cruel and pointless.  An example being the insect room where very endangered species are being bred to increase their numbers…upon hearing this the two losers trash the room and effectively kill those species.  They then set up a giant sheet of fly paper and actually kill every insect and bird in the dome.

Scroll on a bit and the losers escape the dome and then invite all their idiotic friends into it for a giant party.  The dome is wreaked and the financier of the dome blames the scientists while the two losers watch and giggle!  But of course they then change their minds and gaining not only fifty points on their IQ’s but also ten years knowledge in various disciplines they then lock themselves in the dome and repair it!  Total guff.  They then save it from the lead scientist who has gone mad.  More guff.  The film ends with them having learned nothing at all and driving with their girlfriends into what looks like a nuclear power plant.  I can only assume they then blow up the world.

Rose McGowan is in this film but sadly (or lucky for her) the editing of her scene cuts out her lines so she has no speaking part despite opening her mouth a couple of times!

Summing up the acting the film.  Its poor but not terrible.  Pauly Shore is the weak link really, laughing at his own script and sometimes looking at the camera too.  So in effect the film is rubbish and it shows.  They spent fifteen million dollars making it, planting that in terms of trees would have helped the planet more.  The message of the film overall behind the crass crud is about saving the planet and this made me laugh more than all the planned gags.  If these two losers represent the common man then this globe is truly ‘boned dude and lost buddy’.

Don’t lose brain cells watching this rubbish.  Thanks Jim!

GBS