"Coneheads" is yet another film based on a recurring Saturday Night Live sketch. At the time of its release, it was the third SNL-based movie created following "The Blues Brothers" (1980) and "Wayne's World" (1992). While not as funny as the aforementioned films, it is only a notch below them. Worse SNL movies were to come (i.e. "It's Pat: The Movie" (1994), "A Night At The Roxbury" (1999)), but "Coneheads" stands today as a very funny mix of comedy and science fiction.



The early Saturday Night Live sketches vaguely explained how the Coneheads came to Earth. Most of its humor came from the fact that the humans, or "blunt skulls", never suspected the Coneheads to be aliens from another planet, despite the oh-so obviously large foreheads. The fact that their last names are "Conehead" never seems to counter Earthlings' obliviousness, either. This movie takes some of its humor from the humans' obvious lack of observational skills, but it's really Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtan's consistent disappearance into these character that really makes the movie funny. They talk in monotone voices and spew out complicated alien jargon without missing a beat, and they use the film's special effects to their advantage.



I also liked how, because the last Coneheads sketch was 14 years prior to this movie's release, the movie started from the beginning, explaining how Beldar (Aykroyd) and Prymatt (Curtan) landed on Earth in modern-day America, and worked their way from a hotel room to the projects to the suburbs. While I missed Laraine Newman as Connie (although Newman does make an appearance as Laarta, another Conehead in a later scene), it made perfect sense to have a younger, teenage Connie (Michelle Burke) with an American accent. Although the subplot where she begins dating 29-year-old mechanic Ronnie (Chris Farley) still seems creepy to me, considering her character was supposed to be 15 or 16, I thought Burke added a really nice touch to what could have been a Dan Aykroyd impersonation.



The main conflict of the film served as an interesting analogy to illegal immigration, but had some definite plot holes. You find out in the film that Beldar and Prymatt land on Earth accidentally, and stay not because they want to, but because a rescue ship will take seven Zerl's to reach them. According to a site I found using Google (www.tvacres.com/languages_scifi_conehead.htm), one Zerl is equal to approximately 2.17 Earth years, thereby making their stay just over 15 years. Based on that fact, a giant plot hole emerges when INS agents and antagonists Gorman Seedling (Michael McKean) and Eli Turnbull (David Spade) don't age at all over that time period.



Also, near the end, the rescue ship finally comes for the Coneheads, and it seems to take about a day to travel back to Remulak, their native planet. Although I thought the home planet in this movie was among the coolest parts, I still could not get over that plot hole. Why it took over a decade and a half to bring a ship over, yet it didn't take that long to go from Earth to Remulak and back, is never explained, and weakens the story a bit.



However, other parts in the film otherwise made me laugh. The best parts were when the Coneheads interacted with humans in the outside world. Also, perhaps better than any other SNL movie to date, having numerous former and (then) current Not Ready For Primetime Players in various roles large and small served as a great tribute to "Saturday Night Live". There were also a few cameos from then-unknown stand-up comedians who would go on to be big stars (Ellen DeGeneres, Drew Carey, Eddie Griffin).



"The Blues Brothers", "Wayne's World", and "Wayne's World 2" (1993) were hard movies to top, but "Coneheads", while not great, is pretty funny, and miles away from the notoriously bad SNL movies that were to come. It suffered mostly from its story line, but otherwise used special effects wisely to effectively elicit laughs. It's a good movie to watch after you have consumed mass quantities and want to get a good laugh while you digest.