Bio-Dome (1996)

Image by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer via IMDB

Hey everyone! I hope you’re all healthy and safe reading this. I’ve been binge-watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for this blog. I had to tear myself away today to write this blog post. I’m on Season Six and, holy crap, I had no idea the show would get this good. Hopefully, it maintains through the end of the series. I’ll do a write-up on it shortly. But until then, I have plenty of other stuff to talk about including… *sigh* Pauly Shore…

Some things are better left in the past

Image by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer via IMDB

Pauly Shore is one of those actors that some people thought were funny in the 90s, but wish we could sweep under the rug today. Pauly Shore and Carrot Top both. There were other “comedians” who I just plain don’t like from that era, your Rob Schneiders and David Spades, but at least they were in good movies where they could play off funnier people. Shore was in a series of movies from 1992 to 1996, starting with Encino Man and ending with Bio-Dome. He still had acting gigs after, sure, but he wasn’t the top-billed actor in a big movie after this one.

January 12, 1996. Mariah Carey’s “One Sweet Day” was the #1 song in the country. The weekend previous to this, my hopes and dreams of back-to-back Super Bowl championships by the San Francisco 49ers were dashed. A young and hungry Green Bay Packers, led by a fresh Brett Farve and new coach Mike Holmgren came to 3Com Park in San Francisco and beat my 49ers 27-17. The Packers would lose on Jan 14 to the Dallas Cowboys, who went on to win Super Bowl XXX that year. It was the beginning of the end for my 49ers, as of yet that still haven’t achieved the greatness of the 1994-95 season again. I thought we were starting the second leg of our dynasty, not knowing at the time that the previous season was the last chapter in that great team. A dash of reality and disappointment with life. Speaking of disappointment...

 

Nothing reeks of disappointment like this image

Image by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer via IMDB

So, Bio-Dome stars Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin, a truly winning combination. The movie kicks off with Shore attacking Baldwin, so they could get out of going to an environmental rally with their girlfriends, played by Joey Lauren Adams and Teresa Hill. Adams is way too good for this movie, I don’t know why she’s in it. Maybe it’s a prequel to Chasing Amy? I’m sure many women would rather date another woman than Shore or Baldwin’s characters. So at first, the girls buy their deception, then figure out that they did it on purpose. So they leave. They call the boys from a payphone to tell them they’re going to meet up with a male swim team at the lake and have a party. So Shore and Baldwin, because they’re testosterone-fueled men, have to go and stop it from happening. Remember how jealous they get here because this relates to something I want to talk about later in the movie.

So they get to the lake, find out the girls lied to them, and then leave. But Baldwin needs to pee. So they head over to this experimental Bio-Dome because they think it’s a mall, to use the restroom. Ah yes, the bio-dome itself. The biodome is the brainchild of a scientist played by William Atherton who, after being in Ghostbusters and Die Hard, I guess decided to lower the bar for himself. Atherton and his scientists, two of them female (played by Kylie Minogue and Dara Tomanovich), are experimenting for environmental reasons and have to be sealed into the dome for a full year. Well, Shore and Baldwin manage to sneak inside, still thinking it’s a mall, pee on some plants, and get locked in. Why can’t they just unlock the door and leave? Because science mumbo-jumbo and it’ll ruin the experiment and reasons. I’m sorry. I did watch this movie, but I was already checking out by the time this comes along, so I don’t remember all the details.

This movie took me an entire day to watch. I could make it through about 20 minutes before needing to take a 2-3 hour break. The movie is just stupid. But it isn’t stupid in a cool way, like Hackers. Here’s an example. The bulk of the movie is inside the Bio-Dome and includes lots of scenes of Shore and Baldwin just messing around and causing chaos for no reason. The scene I point to the most involves Shore talking to one of the scientists, who has a large collection of exotic and rare butterflies in glass bottles. Shore distracts him by pretending to be interested in what he’s saying, causing Baldwin to come running into the room, screaming at the top of his lungs, flailing his arms around, knocking all the bottles off the shelves, before running out still screaming. The scene ends with the doctor crying because his life's work is ruined. I guess they wanted to let the butterflies free? But they just killed a lot of them, breaking the bottles. The scene is supposed to be funny. The whole movie is like this and supposed to be funny. If you think watching two grown men, yell and scream, be intentionally destructive, and hit on other women, crudely is funny - then, by all means, enjoy Bio-Dome. Oh yes, they spend the whole movie trying to bang the two female scientists, who are visibly not interested. And it’s not even in that “Let me buy you dinner” kind of way that might be argued as being polite. No, it’s in the “I’m going to make vague innuendos and be gross to them” kind of way. If smartphones existed in 1996, they would have been sending dick pics.

 

The carrot is a euphemism for his penis. Too bad Carrot Top didn't star in this movie.

Image by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer via IMDB

At some point, Shore and Baldwin break out and, instead of just going home, because they’re free from the dome, they bring back tons of people for a party. So hundreds of people crash and dome and ruin the experiments and have a rager of a party. In one of the few bright spots of the whole thing, Tenacious D show up to perform, in one of their earliest appearances together. “Oh Nate, I thought you hated crude humor, how come you like Tenacious D?” Not even going to dignify that with a response.

So the party is over and the scientists are ready to leave because Shore and Baldwin have ruined their experiment. But the two idiots convince them to stay, using the argument that: The dome is trashed and so is the Earth, we can clean it up and restore the dome to normality, and then we can do that to the Earth. Ugh. The scientists agree to help, except for Atherton, who goes mad and runs off. Then he decides to BLOW UP THE DOME because that’s the only thing he can do to fix his broken dream!

Months later, Shore and Baldwin restore the dome to its original glory. They also find out about the bombs and save the day. Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin have solved all the environmental issues society faces. Their girlfriends are now proud of them and show up to take them back At this point, the female scientists have been worn down by Shore and Baldwin’s constant sex jokes, and are ready for them. So what do the boys do? They say “No thanks! We have girlfriends!” Yay, so chivalrous to stand up for their women. They all get into a car a drive off, with Baldwin having to pee again, so they head towards a Nuclear Power Plant. The end.

So glad the boys decided to be respectful at the end and stick with their girlfriends (pictures) instead of those scientist hussies!

Image by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer via IMDB

Ugh. This movie made $13.4 million against its budget of $15 million and holds a 4% rating on rotten tomatoes. Shore won a Razzie Award for Worst Actor for this trainwreck. I don’t have a lot of interesting behind-the-scenes stuff. They were able to score some random actors for this movie. Rose McGowan has a small role. Patty Hearst and Roger Clinton (Bill Clinton’s brother) had minor bits. Phil LaMarr, Paul Eiding, and Rodger Bumpass have bit parts, all three of them more famous for their voice work than live acting.

I don't think McGowan is very charmed by this dweeb. Maybe he needs to be on the same page.

Image by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer via IMDB

Stephen Baldwin and Pauly Shore have been talking with each other since at least 2013 about doing a sequel, and they somehow have funding, but they haven’t gotten any studio approval. The fact that they’re even trying means that the world is beyond saving. Ironic, since this whole movie was about saving the world. Here’s a clip of Baldwin wishing they’d do a Broadway version of Bio-Dome.

 

Nothing scares me more than a sequel to this POS movie. Not even these stupid outfits.

Image by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer via IMDB

Like I said at the beginning, that was the last big movie for Pauly Shore. He would keep acting, still acting today, but no big staring comedy roles. He had a slight resurgence in 2003 with Pauly Shore is Dead, a mockumentary where he pokes fun at himself. We’ll talk about that another time.

Stephen Baldwin has been busy over the years taking the roles that Alec and Billy have turned down

Image by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer via IMDB

Final Thoughts

Did you think I would give it anything else? I hate this movie. I hate it, so much. It’s the bad kind of stupid and uninteresting and borderline offensive. Especially with the typical “If you harass a cute girl and make enough sex jokes at her, she’ll eventually wear down and want your wee-wee” trope. Hard pass. A friend of mine once asked me “Why do you watch movies that you know will be bad?” And the answer is “Because I don’t know if they’ll be bad until I see them. I’ve seen plenty of movies that I thought would suck but turned out awesome instead.” But in this case, I was afraid the movie would suck, and it did. Nothing else I can say bout it.

But that’s just my opinion. Check out JustWatch to see where it’s streaming. I don’t recommend watching it, but I still feel obligated to tell you to see it yourself and form your own opinion. Let me know what you thought of it, or Pauly Shore in general. I know he has some fans out there and some people consider this piece of garbage to be a “cult classic.” I welcome the chance to hear from you so I can tell you that you're wrong straight to your metaphorical face.

Sorry for the shorter post, there just wasn’t a whole lot to say about this movie. Not many interesting behind-the-scenes tidbits. I go from a movie I love to a movie I hate. Next time, we’re going to look at the 1995 HBO original film, Tyson. Is this Mike Tyson biopic a knockout punch? Or does it end up flat on its back? Find out next time!

Okay, back to DS9…..

Somehow, I don't think Commander Worf would have liked Bio-Dome OR Pauly Shore, either. Sadly, there would have been no honor for Worf to engage Shore in combat.

Image by Paramount Domestic Television via IMDB