Well, first off - Buckaroo Bonzai is not a great film - what it is - is a amusing, silly sci-fi romp that pretty much spoofs the whole concepts of sci-fi / screaming mad aliens / with an implausible plot and a comic book continuity. But frankly, who cares. There a dead pan looks, sight gags, puns, bad costumes, and a list of stars that makes you blink twice trying to understand how they got these people to agree to do this movie. And that's the key - its just a group of people with a bad suits and wacked out lines trying to push the serious sci-fi concept out the window and have goofy fun with firearms and technology.