Suburban Commando – 1991 – Sci-Fi Comedy

I’m pretty sure that Suburban Commando was my second movie with Hulk Hogan back in the day. The first was without a doubt No Holds Barred. I think I saw it once or twice in the early ’90s so it was time to view it again now. I didn’t remember it as such a straight comedy. It wouldn’t be the first time my mind played tricks on me though. In my mind there was way more Sci-Fi in it but apparently not. But on the other hand, I think that’s actually a good thing. There are good actors in this one. Christopher Lloyd and Shelly Duvall make a great job but it’s obvious that Hulk Hogan is the star here even if he’s not a tenth of an actor compared to the others.

Basically, Hulk plays an outer space hero that crashlands on planet earth and has to spend a few weeks among earthlings. The one-liners are pretty frequent and I like it when it’s this charming. There is a fine line between being stupid and charming. Suburban Commando keeps it on the right side of the line. Anyway, he rents an apartment by this family – Christopher Llyod, who is pretty eccentric and kind of a loser, and his wife Shelley Duvall. Hulk or Shep Ramsey as his character’s name is doesn’t really understand earthlings and there are many comic situations with that in mind. He interprets literally and the one-liners come from it are, as I said, pretty charming.

I’m not sure if I like the underlying Shep Ramsey Character though. It’s just like it was in the No Holds Barred flick. Hulk gets to play a real goodie-two-shoe. And that of course fits with his all-American Hero wrestling persona. It’s a bit too obvious that, that is what he’s going for here. We don’t see an actor we see the same Hulk character all over again. It doesn’t matter f he’s in the wrestling ring or if he’s dressed in ridiculous Sci-Fi gear.

But on the other hand, I like the development the movie takes. I like how the bond between the suspicious Christopher Lloyd character and Shep develops. It’s nothing new, we have seen it so many times before. They learn a bit from each other and by the end, they are really good friends and together they have saved the earth. Christopher Lloyd gains some guts and Hulk becomes more humble. I’ would have loved to see a sequel of this and actually here in Sweden we almost got the feeling there was one. It’s kinda a long story but the Hulk Hogan flick Mr. Nanny got the perfect Swedish sequel title to this. Both movies were given titles referring to the size and muscles of Hulk Hogan more than what the movies were all about.

It wasn’t quite as I remembered it as, but it was pretty funny and I liked it anyway!