BUBBA HO-TEP (2002)
Tagline: You know the legends... Now learn the truth.
(Comedy, Fantasy, What’s with The Hat?) [R]
I think you’ve got some major bug problems in this place man!
In this one, Elvis Presley is kind of just waiting to die in a nursing home along with a paranoid man named Jack who believes he is JFK. A few strange things start happening at the East Texas rest home and people are having their souls sucked out of their butts by an Egyptian mummy named Bubba Ho-Tep, who apparently has taken a liking to westerns and looks more like a zombie cowboy. Bubba Ho-Tep seems unstoppable, but can Elvis and JFK get their mojo back in time to save the elderly?
Yep. That is what’s going on in this thing and to be honest back in 2002, you could color me intrigued. Even these days I am always looking for out-of-the-box stuff with ludicrous premises that mainstream critics seem to love to avoid. I remember watching this once probably well over a decade ago and being pretty turned off by it, but I wanted to make sure. After further inspection, I actually think this movie has a cool premise and the storyline works fine. The issue is that the dialog is just so ridiculously crass and stupid. It comes across like something a bratty pimple-infested kid who just had his gaming system taken away at the age of 12 would write. Hey, maybe that’s what they were going for here, but really looking past this interesting idea and the fact that Bruce Campbell is involved, this thing just really sucks.
While we are waiting for Bubba Ho-Tep to show up we are subjected to the depressing and degrading version of an elderly Elvis just kind of riding himself for breaking his hip and never really being the same. After Elvis’s real-life issues, I can see why they went in this direction, but having him be a super creep throughout just got tedious.
I did appreciate Bruce Campbell (MANIAC COP) showing off his acting skills and Elvis impersonation but they made his character incorrigible. Ossie Davis (JOE VS. THE VOLCANO) does a pretty good job as Jack and I thought he was quite a bit funnier and more likable because at least he wasn’t treating everyone like crap. We also get an exceedingly patient and kind Nurse in this movie played by Ella Joyce (SET IT OFF) who isn’t asked to show a ton of range, but comes across as convincing in the role. Heidi Marnhout (PHANTASM IV: OBLIVION) is okay as Callie, the daughter of Elvis’s roommate, but her character sucks too.
I personally didn’t find much humor in this, but there is some so at least we get that. It feels like the producers really just had an idea and didn’t know how to execute it. As an example, in one scene Elvis tells us what happened to him and how he ended up down and out, but then they spend about 5 minutes doing a flashback to show us what he just said? What the cow? Why even have that in the dialog prior to the flashback then?
Overall the originality is fun, the practical effects are gloriously cheesy, and we do get a few pretty decent lines in the script. Sadly, it’s not enough to rescue the bad parts which were basically every time Elvis pervs out. I didn’t see what other people saw in this one. I actually think a better writer should have been handed the project and we might have gotten a true classic. Instead, we got original but sloppy.
BUBBA HO-TEP gets a 2 out of 7. I realize that puts me in the minority once again when it comes to thoughts on this thing. I really thought it would be better cheese than the cheese we got.
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