Coneheads (1993)

Synopsis

After the National Guard shoots down their spaceship, Beldar (Dan Aykroyd) and his wife, Prymaat (Jane Curtain), crash near Manhattan. They’ve come from the planet Remulak with orders from their leader, Highmaster Mintot (Dave Thomas), to conquer Earth. Unfortunately, a rescue ship won’t arrive for years, so Beldar and Prymaat must blend in to survive. They move to the suburbs, settle down, and raise a teenage daughter named Connie (Michelle Burke). Meanwhile, INS agent Gorman Seedling (Michael McKean) and his partner Eli Turnbull (David Spade) are tracking the Coneheads’ movements. Soon, Connie starts a relationship with a mechanic named Ronnie (Chris Farley), whom Beldar objects to despite her insistence. Soon, the family gets notified that their rescue ship is on the way, but the INS is on their tail. Hijinks ensue (possibly) as Earth has to welcome the new family in town, the Coneheads.

Review

If The Blues Brothers is the best SNL movie and It’s Pat is the worst, Coneheads is in the middle. It’d be more accurate to say it’s near the bottom because, while not the worst, it’s still terrible. Like It’s Pat, this movie proves that what might work as a 5-minute sketch doesn’t work as a 90-minute movie. Seeing the aliens try to act like humans might be amusing at first, but the shtick gets old very quickly. To their credit, Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtain play their parts precisely as they did on SNL. Conversely, Michelle Burke acts like a stereotypical teenage girl who happens to be a Conehead, which creates a weird disconnect. It’s even odder when you consider that Laraine Newman, who played Connie on SNL, acted like Aykroyd and Curtain. That might’ve been intentional, but it’s pretty stupid, like everything else in this movie.

While Charles Rocket as the villain was the best part of It’s Pat, Michael McKean is far from that. He’s neither funny enough to be memorable nor weirdly intimidating to where he’s weirdly out of place. David Spade is slightly amusing as McKean’s sycophantic assistant, who all but kisses up to him, but it wears thin. The cast has many other SNL members like Phil Hartman, Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, Garrett Morris, and Kevin Nealon. Practically half the cast consists of usually funny people, but not one of them landed a single good joke. However, it is slightly amusing seeing Jason Alexander with hair that looks more fake than the prosthetic cones for Aykroyd. It says a lot when Jon Lovitz and Tom Arnold were uncredited for their work. It’s impressive how they got so many comedians together, and none are funny.

To give this film some credit, as dull as the Earth scenes are, the few moments on Remulak are decent. There’s some interesting production design, and they even throw in a stop-motion creature, which is appreciated. It’s worth noting that the stop-motion animator was Randal M. Dutra, whose credits include RoboCop, Willow, and Howard the Duck. I think director Steve Barron preferred shooting the Remulak scenes, considering his work on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Those sequences fit more of the fantastical comic book aesthetic of his 1990 effort versus the more pedestrian Earth scenes. Also, it’s interesting to see a film from 1993 about a family of literal aliens running afoul of the government. If the movie had focused more on that than dumb sight gags, it might’ve worked, but alas, no. Overall, Coneheads is neither funny nor offensively bad enough to recommend to anyone.

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