Considering that this movie came out in 1986 it is actually kind of hard to imagine that we have not even come close to the level of A.I. (despite it being pure fiction) that this movie portrays. I say this because if you were to give some one your phone that you have in your pocket right now and say "all the knowledge the world has ever known can be accessed through this.... and you can find girls to hook up with," they would think it was just as crazy as a robot that can think.

Short Circuit introduced us all to "Johnny-5," who is just your everyday run of the mill programmed robot who gets struck by lightning and gets a conscious and a soul as a consequence (bear with me.) He (it is presumed he was male knows very little but is fascinated with "input" and he accomplishes this by the reading of books at an exceptionally fast rate. Since he is actually a military creation of a group called NOVA Laboratory robotics, they obviously want him back, but he is hidden from them by Stephanie (Ally Sheedy,) who protects him and treats him like a child.

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This movie is great because back in the mid 80's we didn't have a great deal of technology in our lives, certainly not robots and for most people a television was something you still had to get up in order to change the channel (if you were in the USA you had 12 whole channels to choose from.) Nintendo was brand new and most of our lives still revolved around technology that would be considered antiques in today's time.

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Johnny-5 was like a child: he was inquisitive about everything, genuinely kind and caring towards everything, and would only resort to violence if absolutely necessary. Only once pressed into a corner and forced to fight would he do so, despite the fact that he had some sort of laser beam attack mechanism on his shoulder and was much stronger than most people.

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bonus points if you know what Johnny says when he gets mad

I realize that it was 1986 and our CGI was still in its infancy and that is another part of what makes this movie so amazing. There was no CGI... they actually built a robot that did all the moves in the scenes which must have been immensely annoying to the actual actors in the film. Although i saw the movie through the eyes of a child I don't recall feeling as though it looked fake, but to be fair I did not have very much to compare it to at the time.

of course this trailer sucks, it was 1986 after-all

Overall, I feel, at least for me, that this movie is a piece of history. It was truly a legendary film at the time and although making $40 million probably doesn't mean jack squat today, it was a very big deal back then. Of course I didn't think about profitability back then, i just know that me and my friends were quoting this film on the playground for years to come after it was released. Is the movie as good today as it was back then? Of course not, but it is still worth having a look at because for the time it was released in, it was the most advanced thing anyone had ever seen.

8 / 10