Bubba Ho-tep (2004)
I will readily admit I have a certain love of cheesy movies, especially ones that realize they are cheesy and work it for the benefit of the piece. Bubba Ho-tep is one of those movies. Bruce Campbell has become known for the grade-B action/horror actor and he does not disappoint with his rendition of Elvis Presley. To the scores (thanks to Black Champagne for the scoring system).
Script/Story: 6
Acting/Casting: 8
Music: 6
Action: 5
Humor: 7
Horror: 5
Eye Candy: 5
Fun Factor: 8
Replayability: 4
Overall: 7.5
If you went into the movie expecting to see a deep story with Oscar-calibre acting, then I would imagine you were disappointed. But the movie as a grade-B comedy/horror movie delivered. Bruce Campbell played a great Elvis Presley, had he made it to a convalescence home. Ossie Davis similarly provided a good look at JFK, were his mind removed from his body and transplanted elsewhere.
I won’t go into a huge detailed review here. It was fairly campy, but in the good kind of way. The ending surprisingly got to my emotions a little, but it’s not like this is Old Yeller by any means. If I judged this movie by scores with every other movie made, it would probably score a little lower, but judged as it’s meant to be viewed it was great.
Brian Tyler’s score played well on the Elvis theme, but not in an in-your-face, blatant way. The music cues were effective and enhanced the movie. At the same time, they weren’t anything beyond the ordinary and won’t inspire concerts any time soon.
So, if you haven’t seen this by now you probably won’t, but if you like campy movies and somehow missed it when it first released, put it in your Netflix queue and enjoy.
