Before there were stupid Will Ferrell movies there were stupid Adam Sandler movies. Before there were stupid Adam Sandler movies, there were stupid Pauly Shore movies. Bio-Dome is one of those stupid Pauly Shore movies. The only difference between this and some of Shore’s other cinematic craptastrophes is that it promotes being responsible caretakers of the Earth. Aside from this, Bio-Dome fits into one of two categories: brainless juvenile humor flick or total guilty pleasure.
Bio-Dome pits Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin against a team of scientists trying to make environmental progress by secluding themselves inside an artificial closed ecological system in the Arizona desert. Shore and Baldwin (as Bud and Doyle) think the Bio-Dome is a mall, so they stop to go to the bathroom. After sneaking inside, they are unwittingly locked in with the scientists after the unveiling ceremonies for an entire year.
Bud and Doyle live by the motto “Just because we’re stuck in a bubble doesn’t mean we can’t cause any trouble.” And they do just that! Their slacker tendencies and disrespect for the experiment lead them to turn the Bio-Dome into little more than the wreck the Earth has become after throwing a large-scale party and letting people in through the back door.
To repent for their environmental sins, Bud and Doyle decide to help the Bio-Dome team save their mini-environment. This involves a lot of clever plugs for ways to help clean up the Earth. Along the way, Bud and Doyle flirt with the attractive female scientists and crack numerous sophomoric jokes, often involving crude humor. A few jokes are even totally random and make no sense whatsoever, including a montage of work set to the Men Without Hats song “Safety Dance” that includes a midget in medieval attire (just like in the music video). It also features a very early appearance of the acoustic-metal-comedy band Tenacious D.
As silly and thin as the soul of this movie is, it is a redeeming quality. Bio-Dome came out around the time of a resurgence in Earth-friendliness and capitalizes on this by milking its pro-environment stance for all its worth. Is it exploitation? Hard to say, but the clash between Bud and Doyle and the uber-smart scientists is worth a few laughs.
For some, Bio-Dome is a piece of nostalgia and a guilty pleasure worth revisiting once in a while. It’s better to make that once in a great while, but the film is mostly harmless if you feel so inclined to watch it. Bio-Dome is ripe for making fun of MST3K style, but it can also prove to be a semi-entertaining 90 minutes of brainless nonsense.
No one will remember Bio-Dome for any amount of greatness, but you can’t escape the fact that its “so bad it’s good” cult following illicit a few chuckles, groans and smiles whenever mentioned. Arguably Shore’s most remembered film, Bio-Dome is a part of the cultural lexicon of the 1990s and can’t be completely ignored, useless as it may be.
Before there were stupid Will Ferrell movies there were stupid Adam Sandler movies. Before there were stupid Adam Sandler movies, there were stupid Pauly Shore movies. Bio-Dome is one of those stupid Pauly Shore movies. The only difference between this and some of Shore’s other cinematic craptastrophes is that it promotes being responsible caretakers of the Earth. Aside from this, Bio-Dome fits into one of two categories: brainless juvenile humor flick or total guilty pleasure.
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