Mac and Me
Mac and Me is a 1988 American comic science fiction film co-written and directed by Stewart Raffill. Starring Christine Ebersole, Jonathan Ward and Tina Caspary alongside Lauren Stanley and Jade Calegory in their only film appearances, the film centers on a "Mysterious Alien Creature" that escapes from nefarious NASA agents and is befriended by a wheelchair-using boy named Eric Cruise. Together, Eric and MAC try to find MAC's family, from whom he has been separated.
Despite praise for Calegory's lead performance, the film flopped at the box office and was universally panned by critics, because of its imitations of numerous concepts from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, as well as its elaborate product placement of McDonald's and Coca-Cola. The film was nominated for four Golden Raspberry Awards, and won Worst Director and Worst New Star. However, it received four Youth in Film Awards nominations. The film holds a 0% approval rating at review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, and is widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made. It has, however, attained cult status.
Plot
A NASA spacecraft lands on an unknown planet and begins to take rock and soil samples. Four aliens discover it and are sucked into the craft through its vacuum tube, after which it makes its way back to Earth. The aliens are able to escape from a government base by using their powers. During the escape, the youngest one hides in a passing van, occupied by a wheelchair-using 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 has trashed most 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 that Eric believes are an attempt to communicate.
FBI agents Wickett and Zimmerman, who had been present when the four aliens 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, to a birthday party at a local McDonald's where Debbie's older sister, Courtney, works. Wickett and Zimmerman follow, but MAC, now disguised in a teddy bear suit, 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. Janet, having witnessed the chase while in the mall, catches up to the agents and 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 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 a shootout takes place in the parking lot, which ends with an explosion destroying the gas station and Eric being killed by a stray bullet. Once Wickett, Zimmerman and Janet arrive by helicopter, MAC and his family use their powers to bring Eric back to life.
For saving Eric's life, MAC and his family are granted American citizenship with the Cruise family and their neighbors, as well as Wickett and Zimmerman, in attendance at the ceremony. The film ends with MAC's father driving his family, along with the kids who helped them, down a highway.
Cast
In addition, Jennifer Aniston and Nikki Cox appear as uncredited background extras.Production
Development
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. He explained that at the time Ronald McDonald was "even more 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.Some have reported that the film was—at least partially—financed by McDonald's, which Louis denies. 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. 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 restaurant which featured an extended dance sequence. The character also appeared in the theatrical trailer.
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 films through in-store campaigns such as Happy Meals, although this relationship ended in May 2006, amid pressure to reduce the promotion of junk food to children.
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."
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.Raffill later recalled:
I was hired out of the blue. And the producer asked me to come down to the office. So I did and he had a whole crew there, a whole crew on the payroll. It was amazing. He had the transportation captain. The camera department head. The AD. The Production Manager. He had everybody already hired and I said, "Well, what's the script?" And he said, "We don't have a script. I don't like the script. You have to write the script. You're gonna have to write it quickly so prep the movie and write the script on the weekends."
The crew aimed to distinguish the film from E.T. by having Mac be a member of a family and having powers and skills.
Raffill says the producer wanted to use an actor who was handicapped. "So he found a kid who had spina bifida. The kid had never acted before, but he was a wonderful kid. But when they finished it was as if the fact that they used a real encumbered person to play the person didn't mean anything to even the people who lived in the world." Raffill says "the moment Disney heard we had this deal with McDonald's, they went in and hammered out a three-year deal to get all their toys put in their Happy Meals and have that relationship with Coca-Cola. As such, the McDonald's people were then not particularly enthused with us as they now had Disney, but they had to fulfill their arrangement with us."
Filming
In one scene, Eric Cruise is seen rolling off a cliff in his wheelchair. Raffill noted that he performed a portion of the stunt himself, explaining that "it's very hard to do physical things when you're in that condition. It's very hard to make a wheelchair work because it's not a very balanced thing. When you start going fast in a wheelchair, you place tremendous risk on the child, so you have to try and figure out how to do that in a controlled fashion."The shooting of Eric was explicitly shown in the Japanese VHS release of the film.
Music
;SoundtrackThe film's soundtrack album was released by Curb Records, featuring one track from its musical score, composed and conducted by Alan Silvestri, and the theme song "Take Me " by Bobby Caldwell.
Track listing:
- "You're Not a Stranger Anymore " - Jara Lane
- "Take Me " - Bobby Caldwell
- "You Knew What You Were Doing " - Marcy Levy
- "Down to Earth" - Ashford & Simpson
- "Waves" - Debbie Lytton
- "Send Out a Signal" - Larry Hart
- "Wait and Break My Heart Tomorrow" - The Flint River Band
- "Overture " - Alan Silvestri
In 2014, Quartet Records released a limited edition disc of Silvestri's complete score. The disc also includes "You're Not a Stranger Anymore " and "Take Me," which Silvestri co-wrote for the film.
Reception
Box office
The film premiered in Hong Kong on August 5, 1988, with a United States release following on August 12. A box office bomb, it grossed $6,424,112 in the U.S. against a $13 million budget. It had a profit-sharing arrangement with Ronald McDonald House Charities.Critical response
Upon release, Mac and Me was negatively reviewed, due to its imitations of numerous concepts from Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. 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." 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."The contrivance of the "Mysterious Alien Creature" being referred to by the acronym "MAC", a dance number at a McDonald's featuring 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." Hicks, along with Caryn James of The New York Times, observed additional promotion of Coca-Cola and Sears—the latter brand carried McKids, the McDonald's line of children's clothing. 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. Calegory's lead performance, however, was named a highlight of the film by several critics, to which the filmmakers have garnered praise for their use of a disabled protagonist.
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with 25 reviews, the film has a rare 0% approval ratingmeaning no favorable reviews whatsoeverreceiving an average rating of 2.7/10. The site's consensus reads: "Mac and Me is duly infamous: not only is it a pale imitation of E.T., it's also a thinly-veiled feature length commercial for McDonald's and Coca-Cola."
Accolades
| Award | Ceremony date | Category | Recipient | Result |
| Golden Raspberry Awards | March 29, 1989 | Worst New Star | Ronald McDonald | |
| Golden Raspberry Awards | March 29, 1989 | Worst Director | Stewart Raffill | |
| Golden Raspberry Awards | March 29, 1989 | Worst Picture | R.J. Louis | |
| Golden Raspberry Awards | March 29, 1989 | Worst Screenplay | Stewart Raffill and Steve Feke | |
| Youth in Film Awards | May 6, 1989 | Mac and Me | ||
| Youth in Film Awards | May 6, 1989 | Jade Calegory | ||
| Youth in Film Awards | May 6, 1989 | Tina Caspary | ||
| Youth in Film Awards | May 6, 1989 | Lauren Stanley |
Legacy
Mac and Me is widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made, with The Telegraph noting that it is "frequently pulled out in 'worst film of all time' arguments". Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock cited it as the most egregious example of product placement in cinema history, as well as the "worst thing you'll ever see in your entire life". It was also named the worst film ever in the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as by broadcaster Simon Mayo and writer/producer Damon Lindelof. Michael Hayden of GQ India referred to it as "hands down the worst family movie in Hollywood history."Nathan Rabin reviewed Mac and Me as part of his "My Year of Flops" series for The A.V. Club, writing:
It has nevertheless become a cult film. Lindelof allowed that it is "the fifth-best alien comedy ever made," and it has appeared in various "so-bad-it's-good" listings. Jim Vorel of Paste ranked it no. 52 in "The 100 Best 'B Movies' of All Time", while Cracked journalist Jeff Steinbrunner placed it at no. 1 in "The 10 Most Shameless Product Placements in Movie History", calling it "unintentionally awesome" and "almost genius." Complex wrote: "As an accidentally riotous failure, Mac and Me comes highly recommended, but its real purpose requires a line of shot glasses... everyone must take a shot whenever Raffill's film displays one of its countless product placements."
The film is part of a running gag by actor Paul Rudd. When appearing as a guest on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and O'Brien's later show Conan, Rudd would perform a "bait-and-switch" by routinely showing the same clip from it instead of showing clips from the actual films he was ostensibly promoting. While giving an interview alongside co-star Chris Evans in 2016, Rudd expressed his appreciation of its "blatant" advertising of McDonald's, "unearned" positioning of Bobby Caldwell ballad "Take Me ", and inclusion of a fly landing on MAC's nose, declaring: "I love it... it's so good." Evans also professed to "love" the film, noting that he "grew up on it."
The film is one of six movies featured in Season 12 of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
The podcast How Did This Get Made? reviewed the movie in Episode 10, featuring guest host Adam Pally.