Short Circuit (1986/Image Entertainment Blu-ray)

 

Picture: B     Sound: B-     Extras: C     Film: C-

 

 

In one of the less-discussed aspects of The Cold War, the Soviets (upset that an American New Wave had occurred in the late 1960s while their cinema usually continued to be stale and disposable when they were not gunning down their talent or sending them to Siberia for subversion) become more ambitious against Hollywood dumping tons of resources to make usually-awful productions, including more than a few 70mm productions when Hollywood was cutting back.

 

When Spielberg’s E.T. (1982) was a hit, they were still reeling from that New Wave when Hollywood blockbusters made a comeback and they once again found themselves left behind by product that was expanding over the globe as they were becoming more desperate.  Totally misunderstanding why E.T. was a success, one of their spokesman talked about how they “had the technology” to make an E.T. Puppet (funnier since a new version replaced the latex with an often inferior digital version) and if they wanted to, could have made the film and everyone would have fallen for it.  Of course, they could not, did not and their country would collapse in a few years.

 

Of course, Hollywood itself tried a few times with 100% failure, even when some talent was involved.  John Badham had so much unexpected success with WarGames (1983) that he made the mistake of trying to repeat that success with another tech thriller aimed at teens as an E.T. clone and though Short Circuit (1986) was a small hit, it caused permanent damage to his feature film directing career for which he never recovered.

 

The story involves an advanced robot that comes with laser weapons and can destroy tanks with ease.  No. 5, as it is dubbed, is ready for action and even has an early artificial intelligence program.  Unfortunately for the U.S. military, it has become self-aware and decides to run away.  Unfortunately for us, he brings Ally Sheedy and Steve Guttenberg!

 

Even the voice (Tim Blaney) was meant to sound like E.T. though a melodeon/vocoder, which more than a few critics caught.  The demand of a good kids movie and love for E.T. helped this do better than it should have, but even the comic talents of Austin Pendleton (What’s Up Doc?) could not save this form bring silly, bad and lame.  More than a few seem to like the sequel more.

 

Part of the problem is making No. 5, who gains the name Johnny (as exemplified by the terrifying El DeBarge-sung, Top Three Pop hit theme song from this film, Who’s Johnny, which set back artificial intelligence by a millennia) never seems “more human than human” and is lucky he was not Robo-Howard The Duck!  We can just all thank Badham that he did not say his name was “Murphy” by the end of this romp.

 

Of course, this is a 1980s time capsule of a film and shows the decade at its most disposable and lame, but it is a constant curio and a remake (???) is due by 2010.  It is also coming out as the Disney/Pixar CG animated feature Wall*E arrives with comparisons to Johnny common.  However, both also look a bit like the robot arm from Saturn 3 (1980, later used in James Cameron’s Aliens) and robot extension from Demon Seed (1977) continuing how derivative the Brent Maddock/S. S. Wilson screenplay really is.  These geniuses later gave us the sequel to this film and disasters like Ghost Dad, Heart & Souls, *batteries not included, the Tremors franchise (four films and counting?) and the Will Smith Wild, Wild West.

 

With its comedy, it is enough a part of the genius/geek cycle to barely qualify, especially as the leads act like teenagers, but Tri-Star did better the year before with Real Genius.  A curio at best, Short Circuit is one of those dumb films that just got lucky.

 

 

The sticker on our case claims this is a “New Hi-Def Transfer” despite the fact that this is really presented in 1080i 2.35 X 1 and not 1080p HD.  With that said, it is not bad looking, though there are moments where you can see the softness and others where the print looks color-challenged in a way that reminds us how Tri-Star (they removed the hyphen later) was experimenting with cheaper film prints to the point that Glory arrived in too many movie houses in tissue-like prints usually reserved for slasher films.

 

Director of Photography Nick McLean specialized in making 1980s films with a phony/semi-glossy look and this fits in with the likes of his work in Stroker Ace, Stayin’ Alive, Cannonball Run II, City Heat, Spaceballs, The Goonies and the even more blatant E.T. knock-off Mac & Me (sponsored by McDonalds!) before (surprise) moving on to TV sitcoms.  This was at least shot in real anamorphic Panavision and that is the only reason to see it on Blu-ray.

 

The original theatrical sound release was in Dolby’s lame, old, analog A-type noise reduction, but this Blu-ray offers DTS-HD Master Audio (MA) lossless 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes.  The Dolby has too many harsh highs and muddiness throughout, while the DTS exposes how compressed and old this mix really is.  David Shire’s score helps save this mess and is one of the reasons (especially over the DeBarge annoyance) this made any money.  It was also (along with Monkey Shines, reviewed elsewhere on this site) one of his last big feature film scores until David Fincher’s Zodiac and takes this more seriously than it deserved to be.

 

Extras are many and include a poor analog copy of the original trailer, stills, behind the scenes footage, cast/crew video interviews, isolated music/sound effects track, audio commentary by the co-writers & Badham, robot/production design stills and featurette The Creation of Number 5.  Fans and the curious will have more than they need to see and hear.  The rest of us can skip it.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo