The Perfectly Awful Sci-Fi Adventure Currently Free To Stream
1982’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial captured our hearts and imaginations through Steven Spielberg’s brilliant direction and use of innovative special effects. And just six years later Steward Raffill tried doing just the same with 1988’s Mac and Me (currently streaming on Amazon’s free platform, Freevee), or as we like to call it, “bargain bin E.T. for daytime cable.”
For some reason this ill-fated sci-fi family adventure is the exact kind of train wreck that you want to watch with your friends at a party for its inherent entertainment value alone.
Mac and Me tried to capture the same lightning in a bottle that Spielberg did, and while it ultimately fell short in every conceivable way, it’s incredibly fun to watch nonetheless.
That being said, Mac and Me has a very similar storyline to E.T., but its own storyboard is rife with gratuitous product placement, incompetent adults, and less than desirable special effects. But still, for some reason this ill-fated sci-fi family adventure is the exact kind of train wreck that you want to watch with your friends at a party for its inherent entertainment value alone.
Mac and Me’s story is centered on the Cruise family moving to Los Angeles to start a new life after the passing of the family patriarch. A widowed Janet Cruise, and her two sons, Eric and Michael, move into a new house, but a Mysterious Alien Creature (referred to as MAC from here on in) hitches a ride to the new house in their minivan unbeknownst to the family who was busy spending the entire drive talking about Coca-Cola, and drinking Coca-Cola.
MAC trashes most of the new house overnight, but Janet, who is always conveniently absent when such incidents occur, blames her boys for destroying the place. Wanting to prove to his mother that the culprit was actually MAC, Eric, who is confined to a wheelchair, chases the alien, but falls off a cliff into a lake before MAC rescues him.
Several critics have praised the production for casting the lead role with a young disabled actor, which wasn’t a common practice in the late 80s.
It’s time to pause here for a second and let you know that the Jade Calegory, the actor who portrayed Eric in Mac and Me has spina bifidia, and actually uses a wheel chair in real life.
Director Stewart Raffill has gone on record stating that Calegory actually performed a portion of this dangerous stunt himself, citing how difficult it was to safely pull it off without endangering the then child actor.
Though shooting this scene was considered to be “awfully irresponsible” by critics, it is one of the main reasons that people still talk about Mac and Me today. Conversely, several critics have praised the production for casting the lead role with a young disabled actor, which wasn’t a common practice in the late 80s.
The infamous wheelchair crashing scene has been part of a long running gag by Paul Rudd, who would often bamboozle Conan O’Brien whenever he appeared on Conan to promote whatever movie he most recently starred in. Rudd would do his usual setup, but when the time came to play the clip, Rudd would play the Mac and Me scene, much to O’Brien’s bewilderment. To date, Rudd has played the wheelchair scene for O’Brien 10 times.
Back to the movie… After Eric traps MAC in a vacuum cleaner, his brother Mike starts to believe him, but his mother Janet still thinks that he’s on the verge of a psychotic break. At this point in Mac and Me it’s the kids against the world in their efforts to reunite MAC with his family, who are lost in the desert somewhere without food or water.
They disguise MAC as a giant teddy bear and bring him to a birthday party at McDonald’s in an attempt to hide him from the FBI agents who are trying to capture him. After a five-minute dance-off, we’re met with an epic chase sequence that involves Eric riding his wheelchair at breakneck speeds downhill with MAC sitting on his lap wrapped in blankets (sound familiar?).
Most critics considered the entire film to be a 99-minute commercial for McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, and because of its crass commercialism (among many other flaws), the film garnered a 12 percent critical score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Mac and Me also boasts a controversial scene in which Eric is killed by a stray bullet, but brought back to life by MAC’s family after saving their lives with Coca-Cola. Though the American theatrical release doesn’t show Eric’s death on-screen after failing to win over test-audiences for obvious reasons, the Japanese VHS version of the film explicitly shows an on-screen death, for those who are wondering.
Though Mac and Me is now considered by many to be a cult-classic, it did not fare well upon its release. Most critics considered the entire film to be a 99-minute commercial for McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, and because of its crass commercialism (among many other flaws), the film garnered a 12 percent critical score on Rotten Tomatoes. On the commercial front, Mac and Me was only able to earn $6.4 million at the domestic box office against a budget of $13 million.
We’re not saying that Mac and Me is a good movie. Heck, we’re not even saying that it’s even appropriate. But at the end of the day, it’s so laughably bad, that you simply have to watch it and enjoy it for what it is. The best way to watch Mac and Me is back to back with E.T., and we’re willing to die on this hill.
