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
