I thought "Short Circuit" was the greatest movie ever when it came out. Okay, that's not entirely true, it was crap on the bottom of my shoe compared to "Star Wars," but without that standard of measure it was pretty darn good. Half a lifetime later it's not quite so impressive. Oh, it's still entertaining, but not nearly at the level of my youthful enthusiasm.

 

Newton is master of robotics who has built impressively functional robotic soldiers. These things have terrific firepower and the artificial intelligence needed to make targeting and combat decisions without human control. An electrical surge gives one of them life. Disoriented, robot number 5 finds himself on a truck that takes him off the base and ultimately to the rural house of Stephanie. Thankfully Stephanie, an animal lover with boyfriend troubles, is very open-minded and welcomes the "alien" in rather than freaking out.

 

#5 (who later names himself Johnny) already has a sense of morality, but he’s essentially a newborn in every other way. He learns about life and death and their importance. He does not want to take life as he was designed to do, and he's afraid that if his creators get a hold of him they will dismantle - as in KILL - him. Johnny and Stephanie must convince Newton that this robot is truly alive, and that taking him apart to determine the "malfunction" would be a bad thing.

 

Meanwhile, Stephanie and Newton being a distrustful courtship. Neither one of them is particularly good with the opposite sex, and the oddity of their situation doesn’t help, yet they are, for no good reason to be perfectly honest, drawn together like magnets.

 

The comedy comes mostly from Johnny who has an innocent and straight-forward perspective. He does things robots just don't do like imitating a gangster and turning other robots into 3 Stooges characters. Yet he does things that aren’t common human behavior like taking figures of speech literally. His odd vocabulary and logic paths are fun to watch.

 

The other big helping of funny comes from Ben, Newton’s assistant and confidant, who has a thick accent and a funny way of speaking, often innocently saying things he doesn't mean such as telling Newton their outing will be a good opportunity to "spread his legs" when he actually mean "stretch." These aren't quite as funny as they were when I was younger, but they still tend to be amusing.

 

Besides the comedy not being quite so funny now, my real disappointment is with Steve Guttenberg. I just don't think he makes a particularly believable geek. I mean this guy is supposed to be married to his robotics and completely oblivious to wooing a woman, but I don't buy into any of it. Tobey Maguire knows how to play a geek, Steve just doesn’t nail it.

 

Ben (Fisher Stevens) is an unbelievable character, but he's so far off the wall that it works pretty well for the comedy aspect. Stephanie (Ally Sheedy) is definitely the best as far as a believable character. Something of a social outcast but with a girl-next-door beauty about her she comes across as a desirable but quirky and always caring girl. She's cute but with an inner strength that comes out thanks to Johnny 5.

 

Tim Blaney (AKA Frank the pug if you saw Men in Black), is Johnny 5 and steals the show without question. He really feels like a human character in the same way Star Wars droids like C-3PO do. His speech patterns are weird, but his emotions and sense of humor come across nicely. He’s entertaining to watch.

 

G.W. Bailey, who acted with Steve in the Police Academy movies, plays a similar role here. He's memorable simply because it's who he is on screen so often, but his overzealous military lust for violence is flat and stereotypical.

 

In the end it's an uplifting story, one that will leave you feeling warm and fuzzy. It has its moments of tension as the military hunts down Johnny 5 to destroy him with an emotional moment or two. Otherwise it's light-hearted and funny almost from start to finish.