Cherry 2000 (1988)

At long last, one of the seminal films of the Melanie Griffith oeuvre is now available. Cherry 2000 is the heartwarming tale of Sam Treadwell (David Andrews), who will stop at nothing to find another model of his broken sex android. Griffith plays E. Johnson, the tough-as-nails tracker who helps him track her down. As deliriously chowderheaded as the premise of the movie sounds, it's actually not half bad and immensely fun to watch. The surprisingly mature plot (nobody gets naked!) involves Treadwell's gradual discovery that there's more to a good woman than a beautiful body and perfect subservience. Don't worry, there are plenty of explosions to keep you from getting bored. Griffith absolutely owns the movie--she looks like a complete badass handling surface-to-air missiles, though of course she still sounds like she picked up diction tips from early Shirley Temple movies. The DVD version includes the invaluable documentary "The Making of Cherry 2000" and the option of watching the entire film dubbed into French. Do not pass up the French version: it really brings out the art. --Ali Davis Amazon.com

Red Melanie

My friend and I had a pact all through the 1970s and 80s, and we petered out in the 1990s when we realized that what we had was just a pie in the sky. Our mission was to artificially prolong the careers of our two favorite stars, Kim Basinger and Melanie Griffith, by actually showing up in the movie theaters, for all their various releases.

This entailed sometimes a lot of loneliness, as often enough we were the only two paying customers in the theater, but one good thing is we hardly ever had to wait on line. At the multiplex there would be huge long lines for DIE HARD or ROGER RABBIT, but we'd be sitting pretty, able to slip into CHERRY 2000 hours ahead of time and stay for multiple shows if we liked (though this was actually cheating, as we needed our box office dollar to register in the far echoes of Hollywood's profit machine).

CHERRY 2000 was actually one of Melanie's better vehicles of the period and she looked far younger than in her contemporary films--maybe a sign that the picture had been delayed? That was often the case with Melanie's movies, she'd make something and then it would just sit on the shelf till the studios sorted out how big a loss they were going to take that year. Sometimes four or five years would pass in this way but we hardly cared, all it meant was that her hair was just going to look more lustrous and beautiful and that she was going to be wearing some big outdated lips, but that's why we haunted these big empty movie theaters. Kim's pictures, for whatever reason, tended to find release soon after she completed them--no longer. And once in awhile Kim wound up in a big fat hit, seemingly by accident, so we found ourselves in a perplexing fix when BATMAN (1989) came out and there were actually lines for a Kim Basinger movie and also, when we got in, I couldn't sit in the back row and him in the front row and still holler to each other about how beautiful she was. There were humans in between us--we hadn't counted on that--that had never happened before.

CHERRY 2000 is not Melanie Griffith in any sense of the word, "Cherry 2000" is a robot in the future like a sex doll owned by the hero, and when water seeps into her brain when they are making love, she stops responding and he has to find a replacement for her. He has to venture into the forbidden zone, and find an armed escort--who turns out to be Melanie Griffith, tough and taut in full Linda Hamilton mode with blazing red hair like a provocation. Their enemy, Lester, is played by Tim Thomerson in full 80s wack job form! He is the face of the 80s same as Nancy Reagan! Haven't seen him in years, but he used to be in every picture ever made like Wings Hauser! I'm sure that somewhere on this planet two boys roamed who had made it their mission in life to prolong Tim Thomerson's career by seeing every movie HE made. Funny I never met those guys, especially on this one occasion so great for all four of us. September 25, 2008

Great 80's movie

I am probably one of the few people who have seen this movie and the only reason I knew about it is because David Andrews, who plays the lead, is my 3rd cousin. It's a low budget 80's movie, but is surprisingly entertaining considering how few people have probably seen it and how low the budget was. September 11, 2008

More entertaining than I thought it was going to be

This is a moderately entertaining eighties SF film. It actually is a mixed genre film, being a combo of a Western and a romantic comedy interlaced with a host of SF elements. The central plot involves the efforts of Sam Treadwell to find a replacement chassis for his Cherry 2000 love robot. The setting is 2017 in a United States that has undergone complete economic collapse. Much of the national infrastructure has collapsed, leaving various cities as isolated enclaves. The only remaining Cherry 2000 chasses exist only in a robot graveyard in Sector 7, someplace well west of Anaheim, where Sam lives. To get to Sector 7 Sam hires a tracker by the name of Edith Johnson, played by the little-girl-voiced Melanie Griffith. This was immediately before the beginning of Griffith's newly won respect as an actress in WORKING GIRL. Not that she hadn't already enjoyed success as an actress, having turned in a fine performance in SOMETHING WILD and before that in BODY DOUBLE. But WORKING GIRL put her in a different category entirely, despite her little girl voice and moderate abilities as an actress.

Much of the plot is predictable. Sam and Edith have a number of adventures throughout their quest for a Cherry 2000. The only real question becomes whether Sam will in fact want his robot in the end, or whether he will want to stay with the real live girl. Why Edith would be interested in Sam is never really explained. It is merely posited as a fact during the course of the story.

One of the purposes to which robotic characters are put in movies and television is to explore what it means to be human. This film surprisingly barely does that, except to imply that an artificial relationship cannot replace a real one. Of course, this is made possible by the limitations in Cherry herself. But imagine if instead she had had the consciousness and capacity for self-reflection of the replicants in BLADE RUNNER or Sharon on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. The film, therefore, does not manage to become a serious participant in the string of important films about robots and artificial people.

If you pay attention you will see Laurence Fishburne in a very small role as a lawyer in a bar early in the film. Also, when Sam is led through the robot repair shop after being told that Cherry was irreparably damaged, he and the mechanic pass by copies of Robbie the Robot and Gort from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, the two most famous of all fifties robots. April 19, 2008

She says she can find

A Cherry 2000 is a very special kind of robot, and she going to find one. She Says. January 23, 2008

Love the red hair!

Let me be upfront: Melanie Griffith is my favorite actress. There is a naivete about her that is both endearing and attractive. There are actresses who always exhibit certain traits no matter what role they play or how well they play it: Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, and Goldie Hawn. Add Melanie to the list. She speaks slowly and softly in a measured sort of way. These traits are used to perfection in "Born Yesterday" and "Paradise" where they are key to the character.

So, it is bizarre and simultaneously perfect casting to hire Melanie as an action hero. Only a vulnerable woman could portray a supposedly hardboiled tracker who serendipitously falls in love with her client. Lovesick and distraught over the loss of his Cherry 2000 bot, Sam reluctantly hires Melanie, a mere woman, to fetch a replacement bot stored in the badlands of a post-apocalyptic West. Why she falls in love with him is anyone's guess. Here's mine. Considering the men she sees on a daily basis--psychos, wackos, and dirty, unattractive edge dwellers--Sam looks like every woman's dream man. Although he is physically attractive, a man whose dream woman is a bot is seriously lacking essential brain matter. However, if I were to acquire a bot that looked like Gerard Butler, who adored me and wanted to please me and only me, well, ok, I get it now. A perfect bot as the dream woman. Sam, go get your bot.

Now to the nitty-gritty: Their first obstacle is the barricade just outside the edge of town, designed to destroy a vehicle, but this vehicle--a muscled Ford Mustang-- bulls itself through without serious damage. Then E positions her car j-u-u-u-st right for the Great Magnet. When she climbs out and hangs off the car, to tie the rope on, I really want to laugh. Then the Uzis fire bullets all around but ne'er hitting them yet their guns hit the bad guys. Oh, the dead driver of the magnet keeps falling just right to shift the right gear to move the car right along into perfect position. Then get that car into the drainage ditch. Say wha? And she says it was easy this time.

Oh, let's visit Uncle Jake, the famous retired tracker, who taught E everything he knows, for food and a safe place to sleep. How convenient!

Let's repair an ancient airplane, get it off the ground amidst a hail of unfriendly bullets. Run into Ginger, the old girlfriend--ok, I see why he went to a bot--Ginger is another wacko, especially after Len is killed and she is concerned about those sandwiches. Of course, this strange behavior could be a cover for her disorientation now that her meal ticket is dead.

And, oh, Sam learns that bots cannot truly replace a living, functioning human woman with a mind of her own to challenge, to admire, to love in unpredictable ways. In the final analysis, bots are predictable. One of the most deadly killers in a relationship is the same ol, same ol--predictability.

Overall, this is a fun movie. Yes, it has silliness, but that is part of its fun. Seeing tiny, dainty Melanie Griffith as an action hero shooting bazookas is the best fun of all. But the very best part is the wild red hair! January 2, 2008

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