Amazon.com: Quite possibly the nadir of Steven Spielberg's career as a producer, this piece of sentimental junk from 1987 concerns five little spacecraft which arrive on Earth just in time to help out some New Yorkers getting kicked out of a tenement. The script's goo just sticks to the viewer, and the cast looks silly by trying not to be silly. You get the feeling that Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment was pretty much throwing stuff at the wall to see what would hang there, and they came up with this ridiculous thing. --Tom Keogh
Good Light-hearted Fare. This Movie tugs at my heart cause I had just become separated from my spouse when it came out and I didn't have enough money to pay the electricity but I had a movie voucher for the theater up the street so I was able to retreat there for a few hours of Peace on a snowy day in Memphis.
This was a fine film with the great husband wife team of Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy. Miss Tandy plays a woman beset by alzheimers and Mr. Cronyn is her set upon husband who tries to keep them in their home of 40 years as a unscrupulous developer tries to tear the building down to build a yuppie haven.
Little living robots settle in the building and untimately help the residents push back the evil developers and save their homes.
The special effects were pretty neat and are the best part of the story. The plot after a promising beginning begins to wear thin after a while and the movie drags when the little UFO's aren't around.
There are a few laughs and some cute moments. Overall a nice movie to watch with the kids but there is some rough language in places.
Batteries Not Included This movie has a bit of everything in it. Drama, humor and anything else you can think of that delights you. Of course Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy were the best anyway and wouldn't have done anything that they did not consider to be total entertainment. There are too few movies anymore that are of this class. Violence now seems to be all anyone makes anymore. Not the case here. Just wonderful entertainment and something okay for children to watch too.
Enjoyable SF fantasy I really enjoyed this movie. There is some truly good acting involved in what could have easily been no more than a silly movie. I leaves you with feelings much like those engendered by Anne McCaffery. You're pretty darn sure there are no dragons of Pern, but you really, really wish there were. Well worth the price. Parents and kids (very much including teen-agers) can watch this movie together.
Science fiction with heart Matthew Robbins's *Batteries Not Included is a charming little science-fiction heartwarmer produced by Steven Spielberg. Penned by Mick Garris and with help from Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille), it's the tale of a small tenement's fight for survival against corporate greed. As the opening credits roll to some divine swing courtesy of James Horner, we're shown vintage photographs of New York City and of Frank and Faye Riley (real-life Hollywood power couple Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy), owners of Riley's Cafe on the ground floor of their brownstone.
Lacey, a greedy real estate developer, has hired some local goons led by Carlos (Michael Carmine) to buy out the remaining residents (the rest of the block has already been bulldozed in anticipation of new construction). This includes Frank and Faye, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease, fellow friends Muriel and Sid, washed-up prize fighter Harry, Mason the artist, and Marisa, a pregnant single mother. They have nowhere else to go, so they band together against Lacey's thugs, who delight in harassing them and in further damaging the already-dilapidated building.
Frank and Faye are the main focus; it's obvious that Faye is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. She has a very shaky grip on reality, frequently confuses the past with the present, and requires a high degree of supervision. But it's obvious from her bearing and her no-nonsense tone that Faye was (and is) a force to be reckoned with. She frequently asks about the whereabouts of her son Bobby, whose absence is explained near the film's finale. When Sid and Muriel take the buyout money and move to Jersey, Frank is heartbroken, knowing that he'll be unable to care for Faye by himself. Tandy can be a little over the top at times, but it's obvious that she enjoyed the role. Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy are the reason you should rent this film; their tender love for each other despite the setbacks of age, illness, and adversity are inspiring, more so because they were married for over five decades.
Enter a miracle: high-tech spaceships make their way to Frank and the other residents after a tearful prayer, and assist them with fixing and rebuilding. The special effects by ILM (Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic) are delightfully low-tech in contrast to our current age of CGI overload. The spaceships are quite obviously puppet models that were transposed into the shots, although they do have their own unique personalities.
However, Lacey is less than thrilled with the new developments (his building permits are set to expire within days), and tries to hasten the building's demise, leading to some scenes of violence and tension between the residents and the developers.
This is more a feel-good drama than a true science-fiction piece. It was originally slated to be used as part of Spielberg's Amazing Stories - The Complete First Season series, but Spielberg liked it so much that he decided to make it into a full-length feature film. The set design is particularly noteworthy as all of the buildings were sets, since the producers were unable to find an existing property that met their criteria (there is some information included about the making of the film).
James Horner's marvelously retro swing score is heavily in the style of Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey, and made Faye's dementia and recollection of WWII very poignant (Faye asks at the table, "Whatever happened to General Eisenhower? You hardly read a word about him anymore"). To be honest, this was the first swing / Big Band soundtrack I ever remember hearing, and it stuck with me two decades later as my love for WWII music has spread to include Frank Sinatra's Columbia records, Harry James, and Big Band leaders.
Although *Batteries Not Included may not have a heavy dose of action, or suspense, or "serious" drama, it does have a strong ensemble cast, a great soundtrack, decent special effects and is a heartwarming tale of trust and faith that the whole family can enjoy. It would have been nice if more extras had been included besides the original trailer and some behind the scenes still screens, but it's still a joy to see this once again.
excellent I have always loved this movie so I wanted to get it on DVD. It is great!
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