Mac and Me is one of those few movies that truly fly below the radar of most peoples' memories. I'm thinking that this is selective memory, because this movie makes such a crappy impression that it's hard to forget.

This movie's first strike is that it's a blatant rip-off of E.T, and they couldn't even wait till the next decade to try and capitalize on it. E.T. at least was a good movie that kids and adults alike could enjoy, if for different reasons. Mac and Me is clearly aimed at kids, but it falls woefully short by virtue of the fact that it's no fun for kids and the aliens are very disturbing in appearance. There are no jokes or scenarios that adults (or kids for that matter) would find funny. As noted by other reviewers, there are numerous product placements made in such an obvious way that it's laughable any ad exec would want to take part. In fact, most people that do remember this film remember most vividly the McDonald's break-dance scene. A pack of perfectly choreographed kids manage to fend off government thugs trying to get "Mac" by busting into an 80's break dance. In McDonalds. What? The most irritating part is the alien family. They live on some moon that US spacecrafts can visit and return to earth from (this is set in the present day of 1988, mind you). They drink a dark liquid (Coke, evidently) out of the ground. Throughout the film, they never show any sign of thought above the level of sea slug, they just mope around looking dumb, drunk, and without genitals. They waddle when they walk. They have some sort of mystical power by which they can resurrect the dead (huh?). Then, at the end of the movie, when you think that surely they go away, NO, they are naturalized as US citizens and given driver's licenses so they can drive a pink Cadillac convertible around. The government thugs have reversed the short-sightedness of their plan to study the aliens, and decide that they will allow space aliens to live among us, so long as they wear clothes from now on. This movie is just so random.

Thank god they never made a sequel to this (it appears that they wanted to - "We'll be back!") and thank God that this movie will sink to the bowels of society's collective consciousness. What makes this movie so bad is that it almost defies logic that such a bad film of total incoherence would come from a big budget release and a reputable studio.

I watch this movie now and I realize how ridiculus it is, but when my sister and I were kids we loved it. I know its really just a lame copy of E.T., but we didnt care. We thought that the aliens were hilarious, all of the whistling and stuff, and that handicapped kid that went rolling down the hill at about 300 miles an hour(which we would play over and over again). My sister used to compulsively rent this movie over and over again. I know adults would never enjoy this movie, but most kids probubly will. I give it 5 out of 10.

Don't let that 8 rating fool you; "Mac and Me" is an awful movie. A blatant (nay, shameless) ripoff of "E.T." - right down to the broken home and identical neighborhood - it's hard to believe such crap was earnestly marketed to kids. But viewed in the right context (with friends, beer flowing), this movie makes for a night of comic hilarity.

It's not just the terrible product placement (Coca-Cola, Skittles and Valvoline are all in your face . . . also there's the random dance party at McDonald's that grinds the movie to a halt), but the low-rent makeup effects on the aliens, who have only one facial expression: surprise! Add to that the really bad white family we have to side with, the token bad-guy Feds, and the quality of acting that's just a shade above "Troll 2" that make "Mac and Me" so unbelievably shoddy.

It's just not a movie you can take seriously. So I can't give this flick a bad rating because I had way too many mean-spirited laughs during the entire ride. That dummy going off the cliff in the wheelchair (in a serious drama moment . . . that's what you can expect here) is priceless. And what blows my mind is that the guy who directed this movie also wrote it! You have to believe in this nonsense pretty hard to put that much work into it.

I'm not sure there's a better example of something so bad that it comes out the other end smelling of ironic roses.

8/10