Reaction & Review | Short Circuit

 

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering a film from 1986. That movie is "Short Circuit". Which comes as part of a DVD 2-pack that has both this movie, and it's sequel "Short Circuit 2". And just as a heads up, I will be covering the sequel later on this month.

Now, I don't remember a whole lot about "Short Circuit". I might've remembered seeing ads for this movie when it was being aired on TV. I think it might've aired on the Hub Network a long time ago. I could be totally wrong about that, though. The only things I know about this movie is that it stars Steve Guttenberg, and that the robot is named Johnny Five. And somehow, someway, Johnny Five comes to life and...I don't know anything else beyond that. Speaking of Johnny Five, I remember a few years ago when I was at Wizard World Comic Con in Tulsa, Oklahoma, one of the first photos I ever took there was of Johnny Five. Which was a pretty decent replica of him, and that photo should still be on my DA page somewhere. But anyway, I remember stating that I had never seen any of the "Short Circuit" movies, because I wasn't born back in the 80's. Well tonight, I'm going to rectify that by checking out both of these movies this month.

I'm certainly hoping that this first movie is going to be a good start to this mini-franchise. But the only way I'm gonna find out if this movie is worth watching, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Short Circuit".

7 minutes later

OK, so this guy is moving this entire presentation about the S.A.I.N.T.S robots inside because it's starting to rain. Yet, as I'm seeing right now in the next scene, as they're moving the guests and everyone else involved in the presentation, there is no rain to be found. I know this is a very trivial thing to be complaining about, but I think it would've made more sense if it WAS raining, as they were moving this presentation to the Nova Laboratories. The fact that I'm seeing no rain right now comes across as a little bit odd to me. Again, it's stupid, and completely trivial, but it was something that I noticed.

12 minutes later

OK, I have a bit of a stupid question. So, this General has been told to retrieve the robot, which I'm just gonna call it Johnny Five by this point. And he's been told to not destroy the robot. I get where this General is coming from, because nobody knows the current state of Johnny Five. But if he's gonna go out of his way to destroy Johnny Five, wouldn't that be going against your superior's orders? Because why would you try to destroy something, if you don't know what it's going to do? It just seems a little bit stupid to me that he's going to try to destroy this thing, even though they have no idea what the current state of this robot is like. I don't know, but it just sounds like we're jumping to conclusions without knowing what's going on with Johnny Five at the moment.

6 minutes later

Is that a skunk? Why the fuck would you keep a skunk in the house?! I get that this place is, I guess, an animal shelter of sorts, but why would anyone ever have a skunk indoors? It just doesn't make any real sense to me considering the nature of those creatures. I always figured that you would keep those creatures outside. But hey, I guess maybe it's OK to keep a skunk as a pet. I wouldn't know. But that just looks incredibly wrong to me.

16 minutes later

Wow, I didn't think Johnny Five would be able to drive a truck, even after getting "input" from reading a driver's manual. That's...kinda new to me. OK granted, it's not great at driving right now. But still, at least it's learning.

10 minutes later

Wait, so even though Johnny Five was technically shut down a few minutes ago, he used a wrench to push his red button, and I guess his memories are operational again? OK...so, I guess just pressing a button is not enough. So how do you shut these robots down, aside from the obvious answer of destroying them? I'm a little bit confused, guys, but I'm gonna wait and see where this movie's gonna go from here.

10 minutes later

You know, guys, as funny as this scene is with Johnny Five dancing, I wish the music he was listening to was actually any good. You guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but this disco music is fucking terrible. Granted, that's not really a shocker, considering disco music barely has anything worth listening to. But you would've assumed by the mid-80's, we would've gotten passed the train wreck known as disco. But apparently, I was wrong.

16 minutes later

OK, I was wondering what Johnny Five was doing to those robots after he shut them down. I didn't think he would reprogram them to act like the Three Stooges. But you know what? That is a really awesome reference, and I'm kinda happy to see that Johnny Five has taste in comedies.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Short Circuit". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off...OK. Well...what to start with first? I'll be honest, this film is gonna be a bit of tough one for me to review. But I'm gonna try to explain why when I talk about the movie.

I guess I should start with writing. Writing here...is kind of a mixed bag. I will start by saying that this movie is definitely not going to appeal everyone. And it's for reasons that sorta vary. One of the biggest ones, at least for me, has to do with it's premise. OK, so we have Number 5, who I'm still going to refer to him as Johnny Five, which is a robot that use to be a part of Nova Laboratories. It ends up getting struck by lightning, which causes his circuitry to end up getting malfunctioned, and he ends up getting out of Nova Laboratories through a garbage compartment, and ends up on a garbage truck. And as he's riding on the garbage truck, he see's a butterfly, and he's fascinated by the creature. Which then later ends up with him ending up at Stephanie's house. And soon as Stephanie discovers him, he starts to ask for more input. So she ends up showing Johnny Five her house, and everything that's in it. But then he starts asking for more input, which leads him into discovering more information through books and television. Basically, this entire premise is about Johnny Five trying to learn about how we, as human beings, operate and how we use words to communicate. And that's really the central theme for this movie, when it comes Johnny Five. He learns about the differences between being alive and what it means to be disassembled. Which definitely freaks him the fuck out, after Stephanie calls Nova and tells Johnny Five that they are going to take him back to Nova Laboratories, and that they're going to reprogram him, or dissemble him, if you will. And this is gonna lead to one of the biggest problems that this movie has, which is the rather slow pacing. Now, I've stated many times in the past that I have no problems with movies having a slower pace. After all, I've seen plenty of Westerns that have really slow pacing and, for the most part, they're able to tell their stories really well. And this movie definitely takes it's time to build up Johnny Five's character, which is probably the most interesting of the entire cast. You really do feel for Johnny Five, because he's trying to fit in with how we live. And the stuff he does in this movie is definitely funny, when the movie wants to be funny. And that's really the best part of the entire movie is whenever it focuses on Johnny Five.

Which is now going to lead me into talking about the other characters, and this is where the other big problem comes in with this movie. Our characters are incredibly dull. I'm gonna start with Newton Crosby, which is Steve Guttenberg's character in this movie. He's basically the robotics expert that is trying to get Johnny Five back after it escapes. Well, his friend and employee, Ben, helps out too. As for Ben, he's really nothing more than an Indian stereotype. Basically, I want you to imagine Apu from "The Simpsons", but with less charm. Going back to Newton, his character is incredibly boring, because he really doesn't have much of a character to speak of. The only time that the movie tries to give him any kind of development is when he starts to develop a relationship with Stephanie. Which doesn't work, because this kind of development doesn't happen up until around the last 20 minutes of the movie. So, by then, it's too little too late. And it just comes across as incredibly forced, and the chemistry doesn't really mesh well either. Especially when Newton is told by Stephanie that Johnny Five is alive, and he has feelings. And throughout most of the movie, Newton doesn't really believe that, and keeps insisting that machines don't have feelings and cannot produce them. And he believes that, up until he finds out that Johnny Five reprogrammed the other S.A.I.N.T.S robots that were after him from Nova, as the Three Stooges. Now, he's still skeptical about Johnny Five having feelings, up until he tells a really long, and really stupid, joke that wasn't funny at all. But, I guess to Johnny Five, it was funny to him. But anyway, this ends up with Stephanie and Newton hugging each other, and I'm suppose to believe that these two characters have chemistry with each other. Which is rather baffling, because throughout most of the movie, Johnny Five ends up being around Stephanie, and I felt like there was more of a connection between those two rather than Newton. Then again, I think part of the reason why Newton is so bland in this movie has to do with Steve Guttenberg's acting. But I'll get more into that when I cover acting.

So, I guess I should talk about the other character in this movie, Stephanie. She's also kinda bland, but at least she's slightly more interesting than Newton is. We first see her as an animal caretaker. So, she has a lot of animals such as dogs, cats, birds, bunnies, an ant farm, and a skunk for whatever reason. Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out why anyone would ever keep a skunk in a house. But again, I don't know how often it is for anyone to keep a skunk as a domesticated pet. But who knows? I'm sure someone's going to correct me on that. And if that IS the case, then I guess you learn something new everyday, don't you? But setting aside that issue, when Stephanie first sees Johnny Five, she thinks she's seeing an alien. But later on, after he stays overnight at her place, she finds out that he's from Nova Laboratories. And after she calls Nova to come get the robot from her, it leads to the conversation about what I discussed earlier when Johnny Five learns about being disassembled. Well, sort of. He actually learns this after he sees a grasshopper, and ends up mimicking it's hopping. Once he accidentally kills it though, Stephanie tells him that he can't be reassembled. And then you know where the conversation is going to lead to. But here's where my issues with Stephanie comes in. It seems as though she likes pulling a 180 on how she feels about Johnny Five. The first time she does this, I didn't mind it then, because after she discovers what Johnny Five says when it means to be alive, she quickly changes her mind about him. Yeah sure, she did call Nova to try and take Johnny Five back to Nova Laboratories, but it made sense then. Because she didn't know about Johnny Five's will to live, so I'm willing to give that a pass. But then later on in the movie, after he comes back to her house and discovers her in the bathtub, she decides to let him stay the night, but would then have to leave afterwards. So, the next day, as Johnny Five is trying to cook breakfast, Stephanie's psycho ex-boyfriend stops by with his rifle. I should mention that this isn't the first time we see Stephanie's ex-boyfriend, because we see him much earlier on in the beginning of the movie. So the reason why he has a rifle with him is because there is a bounty on Johnny Five for $25,000, and that's why he's there. Stephanie doesn't let him in at first, but since she was stupid enough to leave a spare key on the top of her door, he gets in and discovers the robot. And for whatever reason, she's, like, trying to convince him to try and talk like a normal person around Johnny Five instead of as a robot. And when he mentions Nova, Johnny Five freaks out and starts to run, well roll away. And at that moment, Stephanie yells for Johnny Five to run. And at that point I was like, make up your fucking mind, woman! Do you care about Johnny Five and don't want to see him be destroyed? Then help out. To which she does, but I wish this bitch would actually keep some consistency on how she feels about Johnny Five. Beyond that, nobody else here has any real character in this movie. Like I said, the only one who you'll end up caring the most about is Johnny Five. And everyone else is just there for the sake of being there. You won't end up caring about the forced relationship between Newton and Stephanie, because it just happens so suddenly. So...yeah, the characters in this movie kinda suck, with the one lone exception being Johnny Five.

So overall, I can definitely say that the writing here is kinda weak. But then again...I don't really mind that, because the character of Johnny Five makes up for most of the movie. So, it's kind of a give and take situation. You're gonna get flat characters, but the one that really matters the most ends up stealing the show, and makes the movie worth watching for that reason alone. But what about the acting? Well, the acting here is OK. I do need to make mention of two particular actors. One of them is Ally Sheedy as Stephanie. Her acting is rather cheesy, because she gives out a lot of corny dialogue. Which, I guess since this thing came out in the 80's, maybe that was to be expected. But she also curses a few times in this movie. And for a family film, it wouldn't be that noticeable. But some words such as "shit", which comes from Guttenberg and Johnny Five, don't sound very PG to me. But I guess maybe it was fine back in 1986. If this thing came out today, it would definitely get a PG-13 rating. But anyway, setting aside that issue, the acting from Ally Sheedy is OK, if just a little bit corny. I can't say the same for Steve Guttenberg, however. His acting was fucking terrible in this movie. A lot of his dialogue doesn't sound very natural. And because of that, he comes across as rather stilted. Now, mind you, I haven't seen a ton of movies involving Steve Guttenberg. The only one that I can think of right at the top of my mind is "Twister". And it worked there, because his dialogue in that movie sounded very natural. He talked like a normal person. Here though, he doesn't natural in the slightest, and it makes his performance in this movie the worst out of the entire cast. However, as for everyone else in the cast, they turned in decent showings. None of it is going to set the world on fire, but it's certainly decent for what was in this movie.

Special effects are really good. For a movie that had a rather low budget of $15 million dollars, these are some really solid special effects. I'm talking about anything involving the lightning at the beginning of the movie, the pyrotechnics, and the laser beams from any of the S.A.I.N.T.S. robots. Speaking of which, the puppeteering on these robots are pretty good, too. They move, and function, on how a real robot would move. Now, of course, when you're making a sci-fi movie, you would want to focus on how good your special effects are going to be. And, like I said, for a movie that had kind of a low budget, this is some really fascinating stuff from the mid-80's. So, if you want another reason to watch this movie, then definitely watch it for the special effects.

Camerawork here is pretty good. Lighting is lit well. Sound-mix here is mixed fine. Music, for the most part, is pretty good, except for one scene. And I touched upon this earlier on, but there's a scene in the movie where Johnny Five is watching TV, and he's watching a movie called "Saturday Night Fever". I should mention that earlier on, he learns a lot of mannerisms from what he's been watching. Whether it involves the Three Stooges, an old black and white film, or a John Wayne movie. And all of that works fine. And I mentioned earlier on how Johnny Five had good taste in comedies. Well, I wish he had good tastes in music, because the music from what he was watching was terrible. Now again, I want to reiterate this. This thing came out in 1986. By that point, disco had been long since dead. And I wish this movie would've left that shit to die, but, sadly, they decided to include some of that in this movie. Now mind you, I have never seen "Saturday Night Fever", but if that is the kind of shit disco music that movie has to offer, then I'm probably never gonna watch that thing, because disco music is basically the modern pop music that we have today. But anyway, aside from that one moment of really terrible disco music, the soundtrack here is OK. None of it is great, but it's certainly decent for what it is.

Overall, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Short Circuit"? Um...kind of, yes. I want to state that this movie is not terrible, but it's certainly not great, either. If you are interested in studying robotics, then I would totally recommend it to those people. If you're looking for something different in sci-fi films that doesn't focus on the tired, cliche trope of futuristic doom and gloom, then give this thing a watch. It's certainly a unique film. But if you're somebody who doesn't care about any of that, then there's no way I can recommend this movie. I should also stress that this movie focuses on a much more slower-paced story. And I know that there are those who don't care about that kind of storytelling. And if that is the case, then you're gonna want to avoid this kind of movie. But, overall, I would say it's OK. Like I said, it's not great, but it's certainly worth watching, if just for Johnny Five and the special effects. Everything else is just kind of bland. I'm kinda hoping that the sequel is going to improve on this, but I'll have to wait and see when I eventually review that movie later this month. Now...seeing as how there were a bunch of references to the Three Stooges in this movie, I'm gonna go and watch some episodes of it on YouTube. Because it has been a long time since I watched anything involving the Three Stooges, so I'm gonna go and do that. Because the Three Stooges almost never fails to make me laugh.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.