Bio-Dome Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		2.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Bio-Dome Blu-ray Movie Review

Bio-Dumb.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 22, 2015

It's been a nonstop moron-athon.

Bio-Dome gives new meaning to the timeworn cinema catch-all phrase "mindless entertainment." Director Jason Bloom's (Overnight Delivery) 1996 environmental awareness meets Generation X Comedy stars Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin as a couple of losers who crash a sensitive scientific experiment. The picture plays on crude, basic cues, never even trying to muscle in any legitimate commentary and instead playing to the lowest common denominator, which is par for the course for a Pauly Shore movie. The film earns a few hearty chuckles at the lead characters' expense, but the broader joke quickly wears thin as the film struggles to find even a modicum of humor as the novelty quickly wears off and the movie begins forcing in variations on the same theme. It works well enough as an aimless movie with zero aspirations -- the kind one watches in spurts, where the joke still works and the idea is funnier than the execution -- but it's a tough chore to watch this one without growing tired of its failure to spice up a strong premise that's weakly realized.

Biological losers.

Losers Bud (Shore) and Doyle (Baldwin) don't really care about Earth Day, or any day, for that matter, unless it involves copious amounts of snack foods, toenail clipping by mouth, funny faces, games of rock-paper-scissors, and other assorted shenanigans. Today, their girlfriends (Joey Lauren Adams and Teresa Hill) ditch them when they learn that that their boyfriends would rather hurt one another than accompany them to a pro-environment rally. The boys take their freedom to the road. On the way to nowhere, Doyle informs Bud that he has to pee. They spot a new "mall" that they believe must be just now opening. They weasel their way inside but find no stores or food courts but instead a self-contained ecosystem. They're also upsetting a delicate scientific experiment. Inside, five scientists (William Atherton, Denise Dowse, Kevin West, Kylie Minogue, and Dara Tomanovich) are to live for a year in harmony with the environment, but now they're stuck with two losers whose presence essentially ruins the experiment seconds after it begins. Can the scientists tame their new guests and salvage the experiment, or will Bud and Doyle's boneheaded ways cost the world a chance at new discoveries?

Whatever they do and why they do it doesn't matter. In Bio-Dome, all that matters is that Bud and Doyle act dumb and look stupid doing it. But the film doesn't really use the situation to their idiotic advantage. Outside of a few little things -- urinating in the water supply or in some other way "contaminating" the carefully tuned ecosystem -- the characters get most of the "humor" out of environment-indepnedent scenarios, such as sleeping arrangements and their dealings with the female population. On the surface, they're little more than live action Beavis and Butt-Head sorts but without the sharp and subtle social commentary or precise depiction of "brain dead." Here, they're just stupid for the sake of trying to be funny, and without taking full advantage of the world in which they find themselves. In fact, the movie's arguably funnier before they reach the dome, or at least before they finagle their way inside of it. The establishing bits paint them as lovable losers more thoroughly than anything that happens inside the dome (which isn't really a "dome" but since the movie calls it a dome, so too does this review).

Shore and Baldwin are good in their parts, the latter in particular selling it with the hair and the dumbed-down, perpetually buzzed or stoned look on his face. Shore is Shore, playing, essentially, the same character -- himself -- that he plays in each of his films, here spending some quality time with his foot in his mouth (or someone else's mouth) as one of the central gags. Yes, Bio-Dome is a movie in which putting one's foot in one's mouth is one of the big jokes. Take that on face value or look a little deeper for a bit of irony. Unfortunately, there's not much else here of value. The movie fails to find any real significance in its plot, using the environmental backdrop as but a means to an end and to pit the film's anti-heroes up against some stuffy but ready-to-break-loose scientists through fart jokes and other assorted shenanigans as they, and eventually the scientists, make a mockery out of the scientific process. The environment is dull, too, lacking a sense of scope or ecological diversity on a large scale. Performances outside of the leads are spirited, at least, ever serious but obviously in on the joke from the get-go. Even Atherton, who plays the de facto "villain" in the movie who cannot be converted to the ways of dumb-dom, seems to have some fun with the part, particularly later on when he recreates a scene from Apocalypse Now.

Bio-Dome Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Bio-Dome features a rock-solid 1080p transfer. It's attractively filmic, retaining a light grain structure and revealing a seemingly endless string of naturally sharp and complex details. Attire, faces, and vegetation around the dome look great, as do little accents in a store room or inside Bud and Doyle's home. Only a hint of softness creeps in around the background from time to time. Colors are rich and satisfying, with a myriad of nicely balanced loud shades appearing on an assortment of clothes; greens, purples, oranges, and yellows are all standouts on period tops while the flat earthy dome jumpsuits and the surrounding vegetation all look good. Black crush is an issue, but skin tones are largely neutral. Mild compression artifacts dance across backgrounds and light debris appears in a shot or three, but the image is otherwise free of excess problems. Overall, this is a fairly strong catalogue release from Olive Films.

Bio-Dome Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Bio-Dome's DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack isn't a great listen. Opening music is aggressive but muddy, harsh, and absent much instrumental or vocal clarity. It's a mishmash of somewhat indistinct elements that make the opening title sequence a headache rather than a pleasure. Music tightens up a bit the rest of the way, with modestly improved detail and raw clarity, but an underlying absence of pinpoint clarity remains. Likewise, heavier effects like exploding fireworks fall largely flat and without much sonic definition. A little bit of side-to-side movement is evident with a few effects, but the film is largely a dialogue-driven picture that lacks much opportunity beyond music to extend itself. Dialogue fails to find good center imaging, instead remaining as much on the sides as in the middle. Dialogue clarity suffices.

Bio-Dome Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Bio-Dome comes as bare-bones as it gets. The main menu offers only "Play" and "Chapters" selection tabs.

Bio-Dome Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Bio-Dome isn't quite as dumb as its lead characters, but it's largely a failure of Comedy, never able to get full mileage out of its premise. It's content to just repurpose the same old gags in a unique environment that could have been more fertile grounds for laughs but is instead just an enclosure for them. Acting is fine for a movie of this sort, with Baldwin the stoner standout. Olive Films' Blu-ray release of Bio-Dome features good video, iffy audio, and no supplements. Rent it for a shot of nostalgia.