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| Bubba
Ho-tep
Directed By: Don
Coscarelli Plot
Summary - Review 1 - Review
2 - CURRENT REVIEWS
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| Based
on the Bram Stoker Award nominee short story by acclaimed author
Joe R. Lansdale, Bubba Ho-tep tells the “true” story
of what really did become of Elvis. Occasionally films come along that test the honesty of critics. They are films we should not like, should not rave about, yet are thoroughly entertained by. “Eight Legged Freaks,” about an army of massive spiders descending on an unsuspecting, hickish town, is one of these films. “Bubba Ho-Tep,” if I’m honest about it, is the most fun I’ve had in a movie theater this year. No, it’s not great, but its sense of humor and audacity go a long, long way. If you visit the film’s website, it is all there: Elvis billed on the left, a dark, shadowy monster figure in the middle, and JFK billed on the right. This is the premise of the movie: Elvis and JFK take on a mummy. I dare anyone not to chuckle at the very idea. Things are a bit more complicated, however, than simply two historic figures and a nasty monster. Elvis (Bruce Campbell) and JFK (Ossie Davis) are roommates at a Texas nursing home. They are old and cranky, pathetic but cute. Elvis insists that he switched identities years ago with an Elvis impersonator, and that the impersonator was mistaken for the real Elvis when he died. JFK insists that he was not killed in Dallas in 1963, but that part of his brain was removed, replaced with sand, and that he was dipped in ink to conceal his identity. Oh, did I forget to mention: this JFK is an African American. All is well in this tranquil little nuthouse until a mysterious reincarnated mummy surfaces from an area creek. You see, some Egyptian artifacts were stolen from an area museum, and then ended up in the water when the getaway vehicle crashed. The crash opened the coffin, and the corpse of – actually, none of this really matters. This movie is not about the plot, but about the random scenarios made possible by the broad outlines of a preposterous story. For me, this movie worked because every one of these scenarios is interesting and different. The movie opens with the hilarious, philosophical ramblings of an aged, limping, broken Elvis. Imagine what a surprise THIS rock star would be for the leagues of believers who still think he is alive. The movie then throws at us its share of absurd and ridiculous thrills. There is a bug that attacks residents of the nursing home. As the plot thickens, Elvis experiences a number of bizarre flashbacks that begin as menacing, but become increasingly ridiculous and funny. Then writer and director Don Coscarelli, who seems to have mastered the knack of pushing absurdity to its furthest extreme, introduces JFK to the story. He is the only one who believes that Elvis is who he says he is, and is the one who uncovers the horrifying truth about the prowling mummy. The final of the film’s segments is the climactic meeting of the two legends and the risen corpse, a battle for the ages between a disgusting, supernatural creep, a wheelchair-confined President of a different race and an aged rocker who now must fight with the aid of a walker. Say what you will, but this is fun stuff; the kind of gutsy creativity that is rarely seen in movies any more. Its goal is not to be believable, moving, or powerful, but purely to entertain. Most of the credit goes to Campbell, as Elvis, who gives weight to the film’s silliness. Whether dejected and hopeless, nostalgic and wistful, or brazen and determined, we literally cannot take our eyes off of him. In a part that leaves him often confined to a bed, or moving sluggishly into action, he brings spontaneity to Elvis that assures us we never know what he’ll do or say next. “Bubba Ho-Tep” pulls out all the stops to make us laugh. And even if it stretches a bit too far in that pursuit – not delivering enough in the long run to satisfy its stretches of the imagination – I genuinely appreciate the effort.  Check out Reviews, Commentary, and More at Zertinet.com |
LINKS
TO REVIEWS |
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Bubba Ho-Tep is funny. I don’t think there is any way of denying it. There is certainly something inexplicably hilarious about Elvis and JFK fighting an escaped Egyptian mummy. Yet Bubba Ho-Tep suffers from what I can only describe at the SNL syndrome. Certainly for the past 10 years, and possibly much longer than that, Saturday Night Live has extended its skits well past their usable time. A funny idea is stretched time and time again to fill far more time than it really should. I believe especially near the end we see this played out in Bubba Ho-Tep. The idea that these two cranky old men think they are Elvis and JFK is a funny one, but not enough to get us past the extremely long and somewhat underplayed conclusion. There is a definite point in the film, immediately after the first encounter with the Mummy, when the film seems to run out of ideas. After this point, the sheer humor of the situation is no longer enough to amuse us. There is an extremely long showdown near the end of the movie, which aside from being unnecessarily graphic, doesn’t bring a single new piece of humor to the table. JFK tries to fight the Mummy in his wheelchair and Elvis in his walker. But we’ve already seen most of this and the action itself isn’t campy enough to simply be fun to laugh at. It felt during most of it that I was simply watching another typical fight scene from any Hollywood Action flick. As a testament to the pure lagging of this final scene, I almost completely forgot I was watching Elvis and JFK. I think the greater question though is how much this detracts from the film. If the film where cut off around the one hour point, I would have left thinking the film was wonderfully imaginative and very funny. But that last half hour certainly felt like an SNL sketch – simply unnecessary. So I’ll leave this up to you. There’s nothing terribly important about this film that brings me to compel you to see this film, but it is a creative idea and there are some jokes worth seeing. The real question is do you want to see Elvis and JFK take on a Mummy even if in the end it all comes down to Hollywood style showdown.  |
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