Commercial Plug-in for Breakin' 3: Ghetto Blast Energy

MAC AND ME (1988)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Mac and Me" is one of the most egregious examples of commercial plug-ins in a movie I've ever seen. It is not a movie - it is a blatant commercial for Coca-Cola and McDonald's. Period. It also serves as a desperately thin clone of Spielberg's "E.T," which in an odd maneuver might serve as a poor commercial plug-in for Spielberg's classic tearjerker. Yeah, I know, E.T. ate Reese's Pieces in that movie but the candy did not save his life when the poor alien's health suffered. Also, E.T. never danced a jig at McDonald's while young customers breakdanced to synthetic, synthesizer pop music that even Debbie Gibson would not have played in her walkman. But why stop there? Was that breakdancing bit a plug-in for the "Breakin'" movie that never was - "Breakin' 3: Ghetto Blast Energy"?

Mac and Me hilarious wheelchair fall

"Mac and Me" has actors dressed in beige-colored, seemingly latexed alien costumes with middle-aged pot bellies, and little Mac (Mysterious Alien Creature) is the largely inanimate bug-eyed alien who ends up in suburbia and resides with a kid in a wheelchair (Jade Calegory). Why did this uncommunicative alien decide to live with this family? All it can do is whistle to communicate. Then there is the single mom (Christine Ebersole) as the Dee Wallace clone who works at Sears! How do they afford the house in Sacramento? My wife asked that one as we watched and I can't answer that - show me the family's financial records! Meanwhile, why on God's Good Earth do these aliens need to sip Coca-Cola to live? Why are Mama, Papa and Sister Googly-Eyed Alien Family out in the middle of the desert where there are no Coca-Cola vending machines and no Skittles? I am guessing the Death Valley location resembles their barren planet, which can only mean that the planet and desert scenes were shot on the same day. "Mac and Me" is the kind of idiotic E.T. clone where the FBI agents run at Flash speeds while chasing a kid on a wheelchair in the middle of freeway traffic! I now have a deeper respect for another "E.T." clone, "Short Circuit," a movie I found deplorably dull.

"Mac and Me" features a host of unintentional laughs but my favorite is the fact that the aliens are sucked into a vacuum hose twice. Too bad the movie was not sucked into the vacuum and blown out and buried in the New Mexico desert. I mean, look at those Atari E.T. video games they found out there.