Bad Movie Club: Nukie

1988 science fiction adventure movie with talking monkeys and a perverse computer

Bad Movie Rating: 4/5 (Libby: 1/5; Josh: 3/5; Jason: 1/5; Fred: 1/5; Kristen: 2/5; Jeremy: no rating)

Rating: 3/20

Plot: Two aliens crash land on earth and end up in Africa and Florida. They try to reunite with the help of a computer, a pair of African brothers, a nun, and a guy who has a helicopter that can apparently make the trip from Florida to Africa. .

"What do you think of my shirt?" A monkey says that line, probably three times. A monkey! Yes, this is a movie with a talking monkey, played by Charlie the Chimpanzee in his only role. Unfortunately, this movie is so bad that it destroyed a monkey's career. And that makes me a little sad. So does the sight of the main character:

Somebody get Nukie a fucking Kleenex! Are you bad with names? You'll be able to keep track of our two main characters because they say their names more than late-80's rap acts. Here's a sampling of this movie's dialogue:

Miko: Nukie!
Nukie: Miko!
Miko: Nuuuukie!
Nukie: Miiiiiiiikooooo!
Miko: Nukie!
Nukie: Miiiiiko!
Miko: Nuuuuuukiiiiiieeee!
Nukie: Miko!

That exact bit of dialogue is actually in the movie 73 times. It's like the screenwriters (Sias Odendal, who had his word processor taken away from him and was never allowed to write another screenplay, and Ben Taylor, who for some reason was) needed to pad their screenplay and inserted photocopies of a page of "Nukie! Miko! Nukie! Miko!" in random places in there. Or actually, what probably happened was they just had their deaf neighbor watch E.T. the Extraterrestrial and Mac and Me back-to-back, try his best to read the characters' lips, and quickly write down all the dialogue in shorthand so that Odendal and Taylor could insert the photocopies of their "Nukie! Miko! Nukie! Miko!" dialogue in there. Actually, here's what the movie is like: It's like Mac and Me--all juiced up on Coca Cola and Big Macs--lured E.T. into a dark alley with some Reese's Pieces and then brutally raped and impregnated it. Then, during a complicated pregnancy, E.T. chain-smoked and drank nothing but alcohol. And 17 months later--Nukie was born. Or Miko.

Actually, we weren't sure why the movie was called Nukie because Miko is easily just as important. See, here's Miko getting ready to have what I believe is cinema's first cybersex scene with a computer:

Nukie doesn't interact with a computer. He just wanders around Africa scaring giraffes and talking to surly monkeys. That's before he befriends a pair of African boys.

See, there's some parallelism with the brothers and Nukie and Miko's attempts to reunite, and it's all so sweet that you'll shit yourself right about the same time as Nukie tries to fly a helicopter, a decision that doesn't make much sense at all since Nukie can actually fly. The brothers are named Tiko and Toki. So, Nukie, Miko, Tiko, and Toki in a movie that is really Sucky. One of those brothers was actually in another movie--Terminator Woman. Oh, and you see that nun up there? That's Glynis Johns from Mary Poppins. Somebody needs to make a sequel to Saving Mr. Banks called Saving Mrs. Banks about the making of Nukie. Miko is played by a woman who didn't have any other roles, and Nukie has to be played by two different people, I believe because one of them died tragically either after catching on fire during a scene or being eaten by stock footage of a lion. Neither of the guys who played Nukie did anything else either, probably because they couldn't get the stench of Nukie off them. This movie with about 15 minutes worth of plot is worth the time for bad movie aficionados because of the terrible costumes, the gross sentimentality, African tribesmen Benny Hill-ized, some of the most pointless narration since The Beast of Yucca Flats, that randy computer, those talking animals and a liberal use of stock footage, Charlie's shirt, a nun with a wedding ring, and some killer special effects. Once again, none of my fellow Bad Movie Club jockasses seemed to enjoy this one nearly as much as I did.