Bio-Dome

Released 1996
Stars Pauly Shore, Kylie Minogue, Stephen Baldwin
Directed by Jason Bloom

Earlier this week we saw the new Pauly Shore movie. It was shown at Yorkdale. We figure those two sentences constitute a complete review of Bio-Dome; for the learning impaired we might add that the movie is a colossal piece of crap, but we can't, this being a family newspaper and all.

So ... Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin star in Bio-Dome. They are one stooge short of a comedy. In Bio-Dome, the boys get trapped inside an environmentally controlled world, a science experiment under a bubble. They mistake the high-tech building for a new mall, and go inside to use the toilet. The dome is sealed shut. They have to stay a year. They drive all the scientists crazy. They wreck the place with a big party. Then they decide to clean it all up to impress their women and do good for the environment. In between, Shore giggles and clutches his crotch. Baldwin sports dreads and crinkles his face to make bucked teeth.

Sample joke: "If only we had another day!" "Or at least another 24 hours!" The production notes for this film state that Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Shore engaged in "outlandish improvisations" that became some of the movie's most "outrageous moments", which means that Bio-Dome is not funny because there was no script. They were cast in the movie when the filmmakers saw them joking around together at a premiere of Dumb And Dumber. Realizing that eight-year-olds are the prime audience for this picture, we listened carefully after every pee-pee, poo-poo, smelly fart and barfing joke (there weren't really any other kinds of jokes, actually) for the titter-tatter of pre-pubescent laughter. There wasn't any.

The Sun's own Jim Slotek suggested to us that once we had seen Pauly Shore in a movie, we would consider Jim Carrey a genius - but Slotek was wrong. Having seen Shore, we regard Carrey as a god.

Review by LIZ BRAUN
Toronto Sun