🍟 Mac and Me (1988) 🍔

The difference between you and me is, I make this review look great.

🕯 In Memory of Maddie 🕯
This review is dedicated to my friend Maddie—an unapologetic lover of the absurd, the unwatchable, and the unintentionally hilarious. While most people fled from bad movies, she ran toward them with popcorn and sarcasm. She believed that even the worst films deserved a watch… if only to yell at the screen. Maddie didn’t just laugh at the chaos—she celebrated it. And now, so will I. This one’s for her.

🎬 Let’s get weird, y’all.


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Trailers First:

Also here’s a song that plays in this film, called go cubs go.

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Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

“Mac and Me” is a cinematic fever dream—a blatant E.T. ripoff, a two-hour McDonald’s/Coca-Cola commercial, and arguably a cry for help wrapped in bubblegum alien skin. It starts on what we assume is Mars, where an alien family is sucked into a NASA rover and brought to Earth. Chaos ensues. Mac (the kid alien) gets separated from his family and ends up with a human boy in a wheelchair named Eric. And if you think it stops there, oh no. The dumb has only just begun.


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Character Rundown

Mac – The alien protagonist. Looks like a hairless gremlin with a perpetual whistle-face and an evolutionary design failure. His entire language is whistling. Literally. That’s all he does.

Eric – A young wheelchair-using boy who wears a Chicago Cubs shirt and moves into a new house with no back fence and a cliff straight into a lake. Great parenting, by the way.

Eric’s Mom & Siblings – Stock characters with questionable judgment and no survival instincts.

The Alien Family – Mac’s crew, including his Coca-Cola-addicted dad who slurps soda through a random straw in the Mars dirt.

The Scientists – These guys just let four aliens escape from a rover and then calmly watch them go. They have all the urgency of DMV employees watching a UFO crash.

The Feds – Chasing a teddy bear through McDonald’s like their pensions depend on it.

The Nanny – She lets the kids smuggle an alien in a ripped-up teddy bear into a McDonald’s. 10/10 childcare.



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Pacing / Episode Flow

The movie moves fast but not in a good way. More like “we edited this on a sugar rush and a deadline” way. The transitions are jarring, scenes leap logic like it’s a parkour event, and tone? What’s that? This film has no tone—only product placement, dead-eyed performances, and breakneck nonsense.


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Pros

It’s unintentionally hilarious.

Peak “so-bad-it’s-good” cinema.

Alien CPR via Coca-Cola.

The McDonald’s dance sequence deserves to be studied by anthropologists.

It exists. And that’s somehow a win.



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Cons

A lot.

The alien design looks like someone microwaved a puppet.

Whistling as language = migraine.

The editing is atrocious (more on that below).

How did this get made?? Why??



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Final Thoughts

This is one of the most baffling, hysterically awful movies I’ve ever seen. From Eric flying off a cliff in a wheelchair to aliens becoming American citizens in full suits, Mac and Me is an unhinged rollercoaster of decisions no one should’ve signed off on. And yet… here we are.


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Rating: 10/10

(For sheer madness, unintentional comedy, and being the apex of corporate-branded chaos)


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Spoiler Warning

Flashy thing ready: You will now forget everything from here on out if you choose to.
(But trust me, you’re gonna want to remember this chaos…)


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Spoilers

The Opening Scene – We start on Mars (probably?) where an alien family walks like their joints are made of Jell-O and suck Coca-Cola out of the ground with a straw. They get vacuumed into a rover. This is not a parody.

Escape & Separation – The rover lands, the aliens escape, and Mac gets plastered onto a windshield like a sticker.

Eric Rolls Off a Cliff – Yes. The wheelchair-friendly house has a gate that opens onto a death drop into a lake. Mac just stands there watching until he decides, “Maybe I’ll help.” Here’s that infamous clip.

Resurrection by Coca-Cola – Mac’s family is found dying in the desert, but they’re saved by Coca-Cola. Like, literally. Coke is their life force. This is not a metaphor. This is canon.

The McDonald’s Dance Sequence – Everyone’s dancing for no reason. Mac’s in a teddy bear costume. Nobody notices. Ronald McDonald is canon.

Car Chase in a Wheelchair – Eric and Mac outrun feds on foot… in a wheelchair.

Gunfire at the Supermarket – Mac’s dad accidentally fires a gun after trying to understand what it is. Then later he purposefully fires back at cops to protect the kids.

Eric Gets Shot – A cop goofs and shoots the disabled kid during the chaos. Mac’s family resurrects him by glowing. Again: not a joke.

Aliens Become U.S. Citizens – In suits. In court. Because why not.

Final Shot – Mac blows bubblegum and it says “We’ll be back!”
Spoiler: They weren’t.



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This movie shouldn’t exist…
…but I’m damn glad it does.