Director: Kenneth Johnson
Cast: Fisher Stevens, Michael McKean, Cynthia Gibb, Tim Blaney
Have I Seen it Before: Oh, yes. Many, many times. For many, many years the only copy of the film I had was a hastily record VHS taping from an airing on HBO. So hasty, indeed, that we only got the tape started after the rather charming sequence where a toy Johnny 5 careens through a Simpson’s department store. Until DVDs could finally set me straight, for all I knew this movie began with the line “Silence is better than Little Richard?” Weird that I could be so enamored with a film I’ve only seen a part of.
Did I Like It: Ok, so we all know what the problem is with the film, beyond the fact that your relative enjoyment of the film might be directly tied to how close to the age of 5 you were when you watched it. And this is a difficult age to compartmentalize the elements of art, to say nothing of light entertainment. But if you’re wondering whether this movie holds up nearly forty years later, let me assure you with this: When the movie is about (and I am choosing to believe this is canon in the film) a clearly disturbed white guy (Stevens) in brown face trying to get his US Citizenship, despite clearly living in a truck in downtown Toronto, it’s an unblinking, if awkward, dark comedy. Taken on its own terms, however, its really awful.
When the film is a light comedy about a haphazard jewel heist thwarted by a robot with a soul (Blaney) who just wants to understand people better despite losing all self-control when he is within eyesight of a book store (relatable) it is still the film I remember, the one I kept only part of for years, with “SHORT CIRKIT 2” scrawled on its label, that was punctuated with an episode of the short-lived Encyclopedia Brown tv series from the 80s.
There are parts of the film to still enjoy.