The King is Alive. After trading places with an impersonator shortly before his alleged "death", Elvis has spent the last few years in a retirement home in East Texas. But giant cockroaches and unnatural deaths have been plaguing the residents, and it's up to Elvis and fellow patient JFK to find and destroy the Egyptian mummy who's responsible.
Of course it sounds ridiculous, and at times this low-budget flick from director Don Coscarelli looks a little ridiculous, too. One would hardly expect great filmmaking from the guy who brought us the Beastmaster and Phantasm franchises. But great filmmaking it is. Coscarelli reminds us all that excellent writing and editing are still worth more than all the special effects money can buy.
Elvis is played to perfection by Bruce Campbell. The voice, the mannerisms, the attitude; they're all there and they're spot on. Presley is an extremely sympathetic character, the former King reduced to watching TV, using a bedpan and walker, and rubbing salve on his infected growths. This is a man who had it all. Now he's got nothing more than a bed to sleep in.
Ossie Davis is excellent as John F. Kennedy, now dyed black for his protection and more obsessed with conspiracies than Oliver Stone. The interplay between Elvis and JFK is great and Coscarelli's dialogue is fantastic. Clearly, Ossie's character is a loony who only believes himself to be Jack... or is he? This ties into the real theme of the movie: identity.
Bubba Ho-tep's real story is the quest for meaning in a life near its end. It's about finally becoming the hero you've always pretended to be. It's about coming to grips with your past and making the best future you can. It's about taking responsibility for your mistakes, but taking pride in your life despite them. And it's about no longer dwelling on everything you've lost, but instead holding on to what you have.
Sometimes it takes a movie with such ridiculous circumstances as Bubba Ho-tep to let us see through all the chaos of modern life and really examine these questions. Will we, at the weakest time of our life, make peace with our past and fight for our souls? Or will we roll over and give up, content to let the world suck our will to live and flush it down the crapper? It's a question that each of us must answer for ourselves, but the beauty of Bubba Ho-tep is that it brings these questions to light without typical Hollywood schmaltz.
So, Mr. Presley, for teaching us the proper way to leave the building, I say, "Thank you. Thank you very much."
