Mac and Me
Mac and Me is a 1988 American science fiction film co-written (with Steve Feke) and directed by Stewart Raffill. Starring Christine Ebersole, Jonathan Ward, and Tina Caspary alongside Lauren Stanley and Jade Calegory, it centers on a "Mysterious Alien Creature" (MAC) that escapes from nefarious NASA agents and befriends a boy named Eric Cruise. Together, they try to find MAC's family, from whom he has been separated.
Mac and Me
- Steve Feke
- Stewart Raffill
- Mark Damon
- William B. Kerr
- R.J. Louis
- Christine Ebersole
- Jonathan Ward
- Katrina Caspary
- Lauren Stanley
- Jade Calegory
Tom Walls
- August 5, 1988 (Hong Kong)
- August 12, 1988 (United States)
99 minutes[1]
United States
English
$13 million[2]
$6.4 million (domestic)[3]
The film performed poorly at the box office and was panned by critics, partly due to plot lines similar to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), as well as its elaborate product placement of McDonald's and Coca-Cola. It was nominated for four Golden Raspberry Awards and won Worst Director and Worst New Star (for Ronald McDonald). However, it received four Youth in Film Awards (now Young Artist Awards) nominations. While regarded as one of the worst films ever made, it has become a cult film. Due to its poor reception, Orion Pictures cancelled the planned sequel.
Plot[edit]
A family of aliens on a dying desert planet searches for subterranean water to drink through a straw. A NASA research probe lands and begins taking atmospheric samples via a suction device. The aliens are accidentally sucked into the apparatus, and the probe returns to Earth. The aliens escape from a government base with their ability to manipulate electricity and destroy anything they touch. While three of them run off into the desert, the smallest one breaks away and hides in a passing minivan occupied by single mother Janet Cruise and her two sons (younger son Eric, who uses a wheelchair, and elder son Michael) who are moving to a new home near Los Angeles following the loss of her husband. Shortly after the move, a series of strange incidents cause Eric to suspect the alien's presence. The next morning, he finds that it has trashed most of the new house and sees the creature face-to-face for the first time, but Janet blames both him and Michael for what has happened. After noticing the alien outside, Eric tries to catch up to him but ends up rolling down a hill in his wheelchair and falling into a lake, where he nearly drowns but is rescued by the alien. He is not believed at all when he tries to tell Janet and Michael about its actions.
Later that night, he sets a trap with the help of his new friend, Debbie, the girl next door who has also seen the alien. They trap him inside a vacuum cleaner, which malfunctions and causes the entire neighborhood to suffer a power surge. After the alien is released, Michael now believes Eric, but it leaves before Janet can be convinced. Eric's behavior toward the alien, which he names MAC (short for "Mysterious Alien Creature"), changes after the alien fixes all of the damage he made to the house and leaves behind several newspaper clippings that Eric believes are an attempt to communicate. Meanwhile, FBI agents Wickett and Zimmerman track MAC down and begin spying on the Cruise residence. Eric disguises MAC in a teddy bear suit and takes him to a birthday party at a local McDonald's, where Debbie's older sister, Courtney, works. Wickett and Zimmerman follow, but MAC starts a dance number as a distraction and escapes with Eric on his wheelchair. After Wickett and Zimmerman chase them through a nearby neighborhood and shopping mall with additional help, Eric and MAC are rescued by Michael and Courtney. Janet, having witnessed the chase while in the mall, catches up to Wickett and Zimmerman and inadvertently learns from Wickett that MAC is indeed real.
Eric, Michael, Debbie, and Courtney decide to help reunite MAC with his family, who are lost in the desert without sustenance. Following MAC's directions, they travel to the mountains on the outskirts of Palmdale, where they find his dying family and rejuvenate them with Coca-Cola. The group stops at a gas station and goes to a nearby supermarket to buy more Coca-Cola for the aliens. The restless aliens climb out of the minivan and enter the supermarket, causing a panic. After MAC's father steals a firearm from a security guard, the police arrive, and a shootout takes place in the parking lot, which results in an explosion destroying the supermarket and Eric being killed by a stray bullet. Once Wickett, Zimmerman, and Janet arrive by helicopter, MAC and his family use their powers to revive Eric. For saving his life, the United States government grants them American citizenship, with the Cruise family and their neighbors, as well as Wickett and Zimmerman, in attendance at the ceremony. MAC's family, dressed like Earthlings, drives off in a pink Cadillac, and MAC blows a gum bubble that reads "We'll be back!"
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
Producer R. J. Louis had previously worked on advertising campaigns with McDonald's and had an association with their charitable arm Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC). He explained that at the time Ronald McDonald was "even more [well-known] than Santa Claus", but that E.T. was close behind and thus felt that the next "generation" needed an E.T. of their own. Louis was required to negotiate the rights to use the McDonald's brand and its elements within the film. He pitched the project as a cross-promotional endeavor which could be promoted at its restaurants, and with its profits helping to support RMHC.[7]
Some have reported that the film was—at least partially—financed by McDonald's,[8][9][10] which Louis denies.[7] However, he did receive funding from Golden State Foods, a food service distributor closely associated with McDonald's; Louis had encountered its CEO in his efforts to pitch the film and was attracted by its charitable goals.[7] Despite McDonald's specifying that they did not want Ronald McDonald to appear in the film, he nonetheless appeared in a scene set at a McDonald's which featured an extended dance sequence.[7] The character also appeared in the theatrical trailer.[11]
Louis noted that he was one of the first to leverage the chain as a platform for promoting films (Disney would later enter into a long-term deal with McDonald's to cross-promote properties including their classic films through in-store campaigns such as Happy Meals, although that relationship ended in May 2006, amid pressure to reduce the promotion of junk food to children).[12]
Despite this, Louis remarked that he was "still the only person in the universe that ever had the exclusive motion picture rights to the McDonald's trademark, their actors, their characters and the whole company."[7]
Stewart Raffill[edit]
Stewart Raffill, who had made a number of family films, was brought on as director even before the film had a completed script. He says he was recommended to the producer by James Brolin, with whom Raffill had made 1981's High Risk.[13]
Raffill later recalled:
Reception and legacy[edit]
Box office[edit]
The film premiered in Hong Kong on August 5, 1988, with a United States release following on August 12.[2] A box office bomb,[20][21][22] it grossed $6,424,112 in the U.S.[3] against a $13 million budget.[2] It had a profit-sharing arrangement with Ronald McDonald House Charities.[23]
Critical response[edit]
Upon release, the film was panned, due to its imitations of numerous concepts from Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).[15] Los Angeles Times critic Michael Wilmington wrote that it is "an amazingly bald-faced copy of E.T., even though this is E.T. in a sticky wrapper, left under the heater two hours too long. Almost everything in the earlier movie has a double here."[23] Richard Harrington of The Washington Post amended the famed "E.T., phone home" phrase to "E.T., call lawyer" and said, "Why is it so hard to like this film? Having seen it done so much better by Spielberg doesn't help, of course."[24] Henry Mietkiewicz of The Toronto Star said that "it's a common complaint that movies are mass-produced like sausages. Case in point: MAC And Me. The only difference is that this excruciating children's movie is a hamburger right off the conveyor belt—McDonald's, to be exact. If only we could order 'One movie to go. And hold the schmaltz!' But no such luck. In fact, this shameless rip-off of E.T. [...] often looks and feels like a feature-length commercial."[25]
The contrivance of the "Mysterious Alien Creature" being referred to by the acronym "MAC" (a seemingly innocuous reference to the McDonald's hamburger called the "Big Mac", as well as a dance number featuring mascot Ronald McDonald), and the characters' wearing of McDonald's clothing, prompted Deseret News journalist Chris Hicks to declare: "I'm not sure I've ever seen a movie that is as crass a 90-minute commercial as Mac and Me."[8] Hicks, along with Caryn James of The New York Times, observed additional promotion of Coca-Cola and Sears[8][26]—the latter brand carried McKids, the McDonald's line of children's clothing.[8] James also took exception to the "awfully irresponsible" treatment of wheelchair-using main character Eric Cruise, who is placed in potentially dangerous situations before MAC intervenes.[26] Calegory's lead performance was named a highlight of the film by several critics,[15] and the filmmakers garnered praise for their use of a protagonist who has spina bifida.[15][16][24]
Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave it a 1½ star rating, and wrote, in a capsule review: