Movie Review: Bio-Dome (1996)

The movie stars Pauly Shore, Stephen Baldwin, William Atherton, Kevin West and Kylie Minogue.

I came across this film on one of our movie channels early this morning and, mostly because I couldn't find anything else that looked even remotely interesting, I decided to watch it for the first time in many years. After seeing it again, my opinion of it was mixed.

The overall premise of the movie actually isn't terrible. In fact, on the surface at least, this has the potential to be a halfway decent environmental film. After they destroy the bio-dome, Bud (Shore) and Doyle (Baldwin), the movie becomes about how to save a less-than perfect world, something I think most people can relate to.

The problem with this movie, in my opinion at least, is the same problem I have with pretty much every Pauly Shore film - it stars Pauly Shore.

While I'm sure there are people out there who think he's hilarious (there must be, otherwise he wouldn't have had so many movies), I always found him more annoying than funny, especially since he seems to play the same basic character every time. And, unfortunately, that was the case with this film too. 

In fact, I'm not really sure I even like this movie as a comedy. When I watched it this morning, I couldn't help but think it would have been better as a thriller starring Atherton as an obsessed scientist who is carrying out a year-long environmental experiment but slowly begins to go insane when certain aspects of his experiment don't go the way he planned. Sealed off from the rest of the world, the rest of the scientists must find a way to survive both him and the quickly-diminishing bio-dome oxygen levels.

Instead, this movie is a "comedy" with plenty of sexual innuendos and fart jokes.

It's an OK movie. But, it could have been considerably better with a different star and maybe a horror-movie feel.

My Grade: C