Mac and Me

Plot synopsis:
A NASA spacecraft has landed on an unknown planet and begins to take rock and soil samples. Four aliens discover it and are sucked up through its vacuum, after which it makes its way back to Earth. The aliens are able to escape from a military base by using their powers (with which they can destroy or heal anything they touch). During the escape, the youngest one hides in a passing van, occupied by a wheelchair-bound boy named Eric Cruise, his older brother, Michael, and their single mother, Janet, who are moving to California from Illinois.
Shortly after the Cruise family arrives at their new home, Eric becomes suspicious of the alien's presence. The next morning, he finds that the creature ends up ruining much of the house and learns its identity, but is blamed alongside his brother by their mother for what has happened. After seeing the creature again, Eric tries to catch up to him, but ends up sliding down a hill and falls into a lake, where he nearly drowns, but is rescued by the alien. Eric is not believed at all when he tries to tell his family about the creature's actions.
Later that night, he sets a trap with the help of his new friend, Debbie, who had also seen the alien. The two 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 towards the alien changes after he fixes all of the damage he caused to the house, and leaves behind several newspaper clippings which Eric believes are an attempt to communicate.
FBI agents Wickett and Zimmerman, who had been present when the four aliens had escaped from the base, have tracked down the youngest one to the Cruise residence. The two are immediately recognized by Eric and Michael. Eric is forced to take the alien, whom he has now named MAC (Mysterious Alien Creature), to a birthday party at the McDonald's where Debbie's older sister, Courtney, works. Wickett and Zimmerman follow, but, now disguised in a teddy suit, 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, they are rescued by Michael. After catching up with the agents, Janet inadvertently learns from Wickett that MAC is indeed real.
Eric, Michael, Debbie, and Courtney decide to help reunite MAC with the other three aliens, revealed to be his family. With MAC's help, they travel towards the outskirts of Palmdale, California and manage to find them in an abandoned mine. While stopping at a gas station, they accidentally alert security. After MAC's father steals a gun from a security guard, the police arrive and an unintended shootout takes place in the parking lot followed by an explosion, with Eric being caught in the crossfire and killed. Once Wickett, Zimmerman, and Janet arrive by helicopter, MAC and his family use their powers to bring Eric back to life.
For saving Eric, MAC and his family are granted citizenship, with the Cruise family, their neighbors, as well as Wickett and Zimmerman in attendance at the ceremony.
The final scene shows MAC's father driving his family, along with the kids who helped them. MAC, who is chewing gum, blows a bubble that bears the message, "We'll be back!" (The planned sequel was later cancelled.)

Tags: cult

Review:
But this poorly done film made its way onto one of my cable movie channels last night, and I feel the need to have a violent, outward reaction outside of the projectile vomiting I experienced.People, this film is bad.
And forgive me, but anybody who finds this 95-minute commercial for McDonalds and Coca-Cola to be warm-hearted or well done in any way knows not a thing about what makes a movie good, and needs a great deal of emotional counseling.First, let's reiterate that point about this being an extended commercial.
Next, there are basic things that make a film "good," like strong acting, a well-written script, superior camerawork or quality special effects.
Not only is the plot just a poor carbon copy, but even the title of this attrocity becomes an act of thievery when it's revealed that "Mac" stands for "Mysterious Alien Creature." I'm not even the biggest fan of uber-cutesy "E.T." either, but at least there the attempts at manipulation are somewhat subtle.
Product placement, Bad dialogue and a Musical song and dance number (in a McDonalds nonetheless) makes this movie a cult classic.
Perhaps someone who has watched the movie repeatedly and considers it a cult favorite could enlighten us....?I do like the fact that the producers cast a kid in a wheelchair as the star, but the writing was awful and the plot was laughably bad.
However, out of morbid curiosity, I watched this film from opening to closing credits.From start to finish, from effects to acting, from dialog to directing - Mac and Me is a very bad movie.
Overall, I recommend this movie to any soccer mom you wants to promote bad haircuts,junk food, and night mares of gangly, demented looking aliens who are obsessed with pucker ing their lips to their kids..
(In case you don't remember, Coke was featured throughout the film, and in the end it was the magical cure for whatever was ailing the goofy aliens.)Good gosh.
So, I went to YouTube (no way was I going to plunk down one red cent to rent this piece 'o crap) and proved myself right.Bad acting, shameless product placement,the most stupid looking aliens in cinematic history and totally unoriginal storyline (E.T. anyone?), not to mention an 80's break dance scene included for no apparent reason only makes one wonder how this could have made it to "straight-to-video" let alone theatrical release.
This was one of them, and I'm quite surprised that Steven Spielberg didn't sue for royalties when this E.T. rip-off was released to theaters in '88.Honestly, if you take Mac And Me as a kiddie film, it's not bad.
However, the fact that it's a rip-off of one the most popular films ever made, has a horrible script that not even Denzel Washington could improve on, and is filled with product placements galore just makes the film absolutely horrible.I certainly remember that dance scene at the McDonald's; at the time, shows like Kids Incorporated and Kid Videos, which were corny and cheesy kiddie shows with lip-synching rugrats with attitudes were quite popular then.
Also, Ronald McDonald earned a Razzie award as "Worst New Actor".Although the film did have one redeeming benefit (some of the money it made would be donated to Ronald McDonald House, a worthy cause), you somehow wonder if the idea of starring a non-acting paraplegic child thespian was a good idea.
This speed-course in half-assed, capitalist film-making includes, as noted, a plot lifted intact from a more successful movie (Why reinvent the wheel?), takes the form of a 90 minute McDonalds commercial (You want to lose 90 minutes of selling time?), interrupted by Coke commercials, has an alien that looks like a 4 dollar rubber fetus (because it is a 4 dollar rubber fetus), a (sym)pathetic hero in a wheelchair, and a script produced after sniffing the finest glue one could buy at the 99 cent store.
Awe man i love this movie, i remember going to my friends house just to watch it, when we were little.
This movie is so emotional, I feel so bad for both the kid, and the alien!
Nothing' worse than curling up with a six pack of coke, a Big Mac and a bag of Skittles and watching this movie with the ones you love..
Chaos ensues as Mac tries to find his family and the idiot F.B.I. agents try to find him.This movie has been criticized galore for it's constant references to products.
Mac is an ugly puppet, as his family are downright scary looking.Dozens of mistakes can be seen throughout the movie, but this is a small thing compared to the incompetence of the rest of the movie.
Yes, that's right, this great movie has lots of hidden messages.Like when little Mac's parents are calling to him from their desert planet (I think it's the same one as in Star Wars), if you play it backwards they are reading satanic messages!
For the life of me I cannot figure out why Steven Spielberg didn't sue the makers of "Mac and Me" for copying "E.T." (then again, maybe it's better that he didn't, since it would've given the ripoff undeserved publicity).It should come as no surprise that this litany of awfulness regularly shows up on lists of the worst movies ever made.
I have just encountered a movie so bad even as an ET rip-off, but I've also heard from Wikipedia.org that this was made to promote McDonalds to kids.
Not exactly his best score, but still pretty good.Overall, Mac and Me isn't exactly the worst movie I've seen, but it's still a horrible film that needs to be avoided.
the sponsors who invested in this movie would have been disappointed and if McDonalds were hoping to raise money for the McDonalds house charity were idiots in fact this movie cost the charity money I mean that money could have saved people from starving to death but they decided to waste it on this insult to entertainment it makes Garbage Pail Kids The Movie look like The Godfather, it makes Howard The Duck look like Indiana Jones it makes Slumdog millionaire look like the Shawshank Redemption and thats why Mac and Me is the worst Si-fi movie of all time, AVOID THIS MOVIE AT ALL COSTS!!.
The acting was bad and the ending was so stupid....Id like to see the people who invested in this movie..I have a bridge to sell them in Brooklyn..
This is one of those "little boy meets alien" type of movie that was common in the 80s, and it gives you a fun, warm nostalgic feeling when you watch it.
These "Mysterious Alien Creature"s , or "MAC"s, are an amazing bunch that can be literally sucked into a vacuum tube, conduct electricity with their hands and still be able to swim and take showers, and can be rescued from death by drinking Coca Cola.The main character in the movie is Eric, a wheelchair-bound boy who moves with his family from Illinois to California so his mom can work at Sears and somehow afford a 3 bedroom house.
What you get is Mac and Me. This movie is not a harmless family film.
awful flickit's so obviously an E.T. knockoff, and sponsored by McDonal's....i mean, there are so many scenes involving McDonald's, but not happy with that they even called the stupid-looking-ridiculously-poor-made alien MAC !it is so pathetic, when this garbage ends (alien family riding in a car), it is clearly stated that there would be a sequel (message written in the bubble gum balloon sticking out of one of the idiotic aliens)But, to our relief, the sequel never got produced (one of the rare instances in which Hollywood creative brains have seemed to show a bit of respect for the audience).
Unfortunately, I had the misfortune of glimpsing it one day on television and mistakenly figured I'd watch at little to see how bad it was.I can think of nothing good about this film.
In addition, the acting is utterly abysmal and what I saw of the story appeared to be a moronic rip off of already tired elements from E.T., itself not exactly a great cinematic achievement.Apparently, there is much more about this film that is awful, such as alleged Coke and McDonald's plugs and dance routines, etc., but I couldn't stand the film long enough for those elements to lodge themselves in my brain and I cannot personally comment on them.
If you haven't seen it rush to your nearest video rental place and try to find it and if they don't have it buy it online a.s.a.p.I don't know why people criticize this movie the way they do its good family fun!.
And older viewers are likely to appreciate it on yet another level for its genuine good nature and surprisingly heartfelt sentiments about issues such as friendship, family, and disability.The alien in the film is funny but not scary looking and little kids will enjoy watching him get into mischief, make friends with humans, and try to get back to his family.That said, there are also many, many scenes in this film that are of the "so bad they're good" variety.
He's shown as a completely normal kid (except for the fact that he has an alien friend, of course).Surprisingly, despite all the ways in which this film is bad, one way it isn't is in its underlying sweetness.
I looked at the child actors and none of them have been in anything much since Mac and Me. The wheelchair kid has not even had a little background role in a TV series or anything.
Moments like this are what makes movies as strong as they are today.The first time I saw "Mac & Me", I expected a sappy over-sentimental film (ala The Right Stuff), but instead, I saw a blazing masterpiece of American cinema.
How about the part where they suck the alien in a vacuum cleaner as a first impression and the girl wearing the vacuum cleaner on her back starts scaling the wall and slides around wheelchair-kid's house (that was the most memorable part).The soundtrack - now I don't criticise soundtracks often but the soundtrack to this movie is over the top when doing things right.
In comparison to the driver movies they look like independent films without sponsors compared to this - you have Aliens that can't live without Coca-Cola, McDonalds or Skittles - you read that right.Now unlike other films on Wikipedia's List Of Films Considered The Worst (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_considered_the_worst) that I have seen (I deliberately look so people won't say that I need to see a bad movie) I can actually see some kid liking this movie - but it is not for the whole family - unless you want a laugh."We'll be back" - not really..
Isn't it odd to think back on a movie you watched hundreds of times as a kid and you can only recall odd bits of it?
But thinking about it now all that comes to mind is a kid in a wheel chair, aliens in a cave, a van, little cups with handles (which as a 3 year old I swore pretzels) and McDonalds.
I don't know; it was bad, leave me alone.Interestingly, the young lady who works at McDonald's (The neighbor?) was marginally attractive, yet her other film roles are nonexistent.Oh, and did I ask why no one lost their mind when they realized that THERE IS AN ALIEN BEING IN THE MINIVAN?!?Finally, I know it's a McDonald's movie, but it was a little too weird P.C. for me--one of the kids was Wheels from the BK Kids Club sans the wig and bad glasses.
It's so pervasive Mac and Me should be considered one long commercial and it should have been free to watch when the film was released!
Mac and Me truly fits the bill as one of the best bad movies of all time.
Poor Mac is like the Wiley Coyote of cute aliens.The only other difference is that this time Elliot is in a wheelchair.
This way McDonald's which produced the film can boast about how the Ronald McDonald House helps the families of crippled kids.In conclusion I can think of no reason to watch this film other than the fact that 'E.T.'s Blue Ray release has been totally bastardized by new shoddy CGI FX and reedited to be more friendly.
A Mysterious Alien Creature (MAC) trying to escape from NASA is befriended by a young boy in a wheel chair (Jade Calegory).This is basically the same story as "E.T.", except instead of Reese's Pieces we have Skittles, and instead of a bike we have a wheelchair.
(even flight of the navigator is better than this one), this thing rips off E.T. and gets away with it, I Saw this on cable when I Was a kid and I Hated it, it is a piece of trash, there is nothing good about it, you know the boy and it's alien, this is more like a McDonald's commercial than a movie, even the special effects are a train wreck, the acting is horrible, the screenplay is a disaster on every scene and the writing is a train wreck, believe me, this movie deserves to be one of the worst movies of all time and it shows.
I have watched this movie many times, and have enjoyed the dance scene in McDonalds.
I loved the fact they used a little boy in a wheel-chair, not many fun films did that in the 1980's, well one's that were aimed at kids that is.
- The Extra Terrestrial ' and the much derided product placement of McDonald's and Coke, there is still much to recommend of this quirky and at times quite touching sci-fi adventure.The plot has an alien family sucked aboard a NASA space probe on Mars and accidentally brought back to Earth.
Mac looks so much like E.T. that I thought it was a sequel to the Speilberg flick, well, up to when the "movie" started to get really bad.Why rip-off E.T. anyway?
Everyone knows your ripping it off, because E.T. is the only 'good' (I use that term loosely) 'Alien-and-boy-form-unlikely-friendship' movie.
This movie features an alien known as Mac that befriends a boy named um, Eric.
Mac and Me maybe similar like E.T. but I really like the movie.It has many good moments and and is some times funny.The acting is good and the story is fine.
If you want to sit on down to a fun-loving, excellent, beautiful, nerdy, happy, nice type of family film from that period of time known as the 80s, then watch this movie.
I remember when I saw that movie in elementary school & I thought Mac is so adorable & It's a good family film about a boy in a wheelchair helping the little alien to find his family.Even though it got very bad reviews & It's a rip-off of E.T.,I don't care & I love Mac & me,it's a gr8 cult classic that got Mac in a bear costume doing a dance number @ a party @ McDonald's,Mac driving a toy car while being chased by the neighborhood dogs & it was very touching that Mac reunited with his family.I would be watching that movie when it's on YouTube or that I'll be getting the DVD over & over again when I feel like it & The ending have really touched my heart when Mac and his family use their powers to bring the boy back from the dead & they became citizens in the U.S.,when mac blew a bubble from the gum that said "we'll be back",I don't think there's a sequel coming but,I wish they'll be 1 so I can see it.
And we can't forget the grossly obvious product placement (apparently the aliens drink Coke on their planet), the insanely ugly main character MAC (a name which is never actually used in the film I think), and a very 1980's dance contest in the middle of McDonald's.
I'm talking about grade-A quality garbage, here.Mac and Me was a film I frequently watched  an embarrassing, agonizing, shameless marketing scheme fueled by McDonalds featuring a plot ripped off of E.T. And I ate it all up  I used to love this movie.Watching it now is like a slap in the face.
Or perhaps I'm discrediting myself  I wasn't that stupid, but I was naïve enough to believe, at least, that it was a fun movie, and unlike anything I had ever seen before.Well, at least one opinion remains -- it is unlike anything I've ever seen before  a rip-off so bad beyond words that it's almost as unbelievably awful as another shameless E.T. knock-off, Pod People, my choice for the worst film of all-time  and another 'so-bad-it's-good' gem that is actually so bad it becomes good, then bad again, where it continues in this cycle until it becomes downright petrifying.The film's protagonist is wheelchair-bound Michael (Jonathan Ward), an adolescent who moves to a new city and finds himself meeting up with a strange puppet  err, alien  named 'Mac' (I guess?), who waddles around like E.T. and is searching for his parents, who were picked up by a NASA space probe and are now out in California doing who-knows-what.
Some of that applies to Mac and Me since it is such a commercial, buy-this-product-after-you're-done-watching-the-movie sort of experience  unfortunately there is the odd moment where the movie doesn't focus on its bizarre alien creatures or Coca-Cola or Ronald McDonald or brand wheelchairs or space exploration companies and demands its so-called 'actors' speak their lines.
The alien did nothing but raise hell for the kids and their families, there were even a few cringeworthy dance numbers (in a McDonald's parking lot no less) and an ending that looked and felt cornier then any field in Iowa.
In fact, most people that do remember this film remember most vividly the McDonald's break-dance scene.