On My Shelf: Coneheads (1993)...I Don't Entirely Understand Why People Hate This Movie.
I'm not entirely certain why people seem to dislike this movie so much.
It has better pacing, performances and jokes than Waynes World and Clue put together -- and yet, Clue has (an incredibly unfair) 65% "fresh" and Wayne's World has a whopping (and wholly undeserved) 85%.
The Plot: The Coneheads crashland on Earth and are forced to live there for the next sixteen or so years while trying to "blend in" with the natives.
That's it, in a nutshell. The Coneheads are weirdos and clearly aliens, and yet the people around them are oblivious or put their own spin on things to make them make sense.
I'm not saying this is a great movie -- but I'm really confused as to why people seem to hate it so much. What exactly were they hoping for from the SNL sketches that they failed to achieve in this film? I mean, let's look at a summary of your average Conehead sketch:
The Coneheads are aliens living on Earth and trying to "blend in" with the natives. They show themselves to be weirdos and clearly aliens, but people are oblivious or put their own spin on things to make them make sense.
Look! And I bet the game show host doesn't
even realize they're aliens.... How is that different from what we were presented in this movie? I mean, they had to flesh out the plot a bit by throwing in a sub-plot about some over-enthusiastic INS agents (since the Coneheads are "illegal aliens")... but the film needed a villain, and that seems as logical a villain as any. (Immigration in the 90's wasn't quite the furiously-stabbing-finger-in-someone's-chest hot-button topic that it is nowadays. You could joke about those things in those days).
Once again, I'm going to say that people give a film like Wayne's World a pass because they can't remember what happens in it. (And I can't tell you why people give Clue a pass, because I genuinely don't understand that phenomenon).
I just thought this poster was funny.
Especially the tagline, "I can't take my head off you."You know, my title for this post was totally a lie, because I think I do know why people hate this movie: I'm going to say that people think they dislike Coneheads because when it was released it didn't appeal to its target audience. It thought its target audience was people my age -- young people who would have gone to see Chris Farley movies and Adam Sandler movies. However, the people who actually got excited about this movie and went to see it are people my parents' age (people who watched the Conehead sketches when they were first on -- people who, by the time this film came out, were in their 40's or 50's). Those same people either weren't into gross-out humor and cheap jokes like this:
GET IT? HE'S GOT NO BUTT!...Or just plain didn't like the new 90's-flavored comedy. So, people my parents' age watched or rented this movie, and were sorely disappointed in it ("That's not what the old Coneheads were like," is a comment I think I actually recall hearing), while people my age didn't watch it because it was something their parents were excited about.
Ultimately, then, the main problem is that this movie didn't understand who its target audience was -- nor did the general public.
Watching it nowadays, I found the supposed "gross-out humor" to be junior level (South Park wasn't a thing yet when this movie came out), and the overall plot and story were harmless. So, yes, I would actually recommend this movie if you're in the mood for some light entertainment (and can get past the light treatment of a hot-button topic, and don't mind mild gross-out humor.)
RECOMMENDED (Harmless)
It has better pacing, performances and jokes than Waynes World and Clue put together -- and yet, Clue has (an incredibly unfair) 65% "fresh" and Wayne's World has a whopping (and wholly undeserved) 85%.
The Plot: The Coneheads crashland on Earth and are forced to live there for the next sixteen or so years while trying to "blend in" with the natives.
That's it, in a nutshell. The Coneheads are weirdos and clearly aliens, and yet the people around them are oblivious or put their own spin on things to make them make sense.
I'm not saying this is a great movie -- but I'm really confused as to why people seem to hate it so much. What exactly were they hoping for from the SNL sketches that they failed to achieve in this film? I mean, let's look at a summary of your average Conehead sketch:
The Coneheads are aliens living on Earth and trying to "blend in" with the natives. They show themselves to be weirdos and clearly aliens, but people are oblivious or put their own spin on things to make them make sense.
Look! And I bet the game show host doesn't even realize they're aliens.... How is that different from what we were presented in this movie? I mean, they had to flesh out the plot a bit by throwing in a sub-plot about some over-enthusiastic INS agents (since the Coneheads are "illegal aliens")... but the film needed a villain, and that seems as logical a villain as any. (Immigration in the 90's wasn't quite the furiously-stabbing-finger-in-someone's-chest hot-button topic that it is nowadays. You could joke about those things in those days).
Once again, I'm going to say that people give a film like Wayne's World a pass because they can't remember what happens in it. (And I can't tell you why people give Clue a pass, because I genuinely don't understand that phenomenon).
I just thought this poster was funny.Especially the tagline, "I can't take my head off you."You know, my title for this post was totally a lie, because I think I do know why people hate this movie: I'm going to say that people think they dislike Coneheads because when it was released it didn't appeal to its target audience. It thought its target audience was people my age -- young people who would have gone to see Chris Farley movies and Adam Sandler movies. However, the people who actually got excited about this movie and went to see it are people my parents' age (people who watched the Conehead sketches when they were first on -- people who, by the time this film came out, were in their 40's or 50's). Those same people either weren't into gross-out humor and cheap jokes like this:
GET IT? HE'S GOT NO BUTT!...Or just plain didn't like the new 90's-flavored comedy. So, people my parents' age watched or rented this movie, and were sorely disappointed in it ("That's not what the old Coneheads were like," is a comment I think I actually recall hearing), while people my age didn't watch it because it was something their parents were excited about.Ultimately, then, the main problem is that this movie didn't understand who its target audience was -- nor did the general public.
Watching it nowadays, I found the supposed "gross-out humor" to be junior level (South Park wasn't a thing yet when this movie came out), and the overall plot and story were harmless. So, yes, I would actually recommend this movie if you're in the mood for some light entertainment (and can get past the light treatment of a hot-button topic, and don't mind mild gross-out humor.)
RECOMMENDED (Harmless)
No comments have been added yet.
