My Review of 'Batteries Not Included'

I didn't know what to think when I decided to watch Batteries Not Included. It's not a very well known movie, and I've never heard of it before. I looked at who was in the movie, and for the most part, I didn't know anyone in the movie. Although, Brad Bird was said to have helped with the screenplay for this movie. I only recognized Brad Bird's name from Pixar movies. If he's good at making Pixar movies, then he's got to be good at writing this one too, right?

This movie is a little bit odd. It's about a bunch of apartment dwellers that are being bullied to move out of their apartment. There's a land developer that wants to knock down their apartment and build some skyscrapers in the area. Their apartment is the only thing keeping the land developer from realizing their vision. It seemed very similar to the opening for the movie Up. I thought that was pretty funny that Pixar would recycle the same exact storyline as Batteries Not Included. They even made the same joke about what the tall skyscrapers would look like if the apartment building was not demolished.

So for some reason, with all the money the land developer has, they hired some local goons to push the residents out of the apartment. Obviously the residents don't want to leave. They don't even care how much the land developer is willing to give them. This causes a problem and the goons decide they have to play hardball and destroy the place.

After the goons wreak havoc to the apartment and the residents that are remaining in the apartment, a little bit of a miracle happens. There are some creatures that come in to stay at the apartment, and they have special powers to repair things. So obviously a ton of comical things happen throughout the movie with this scenario.

This movie has a lot of charm like you'd expect in a family film. It's often cheesy, but the premise of the movie isn't exactly deep either. There are a few interesting storylines within the movie that could have gone a little deeper, but I found they glossed over some of these stories to make way for the main story with the creatures that help out the residents.

There are a ton of convenient things that happen, but you expect that in a kids' movie. I actually didn't think it would turn out to be such a child-targeted movie when I decided to watch it. I thought it would be similar to the movie Cocoon where the elderly community encounter aliens.

The acting will be very campy throughout the movie. You'll see tons of over-exaggerations, and the movie babies the audience a lot in their explanations.

Another thing I couldn't get over was the fact that the special effects were extremely outdated. The designs for the creatures were really good, but they stick out like sore thumbs, because of the incredibly bad special effects. I'm sure that these were amazing special effects back in the day, but to today's standards, these almost look like home video special effects.

Regardless of all these misgivings, I would say that this movie can still be enjoyable. I don't know why, but I was still glued to the couch when I was watching this movie. I didn't really have any urge to shut it off or change to a different movie.

Overall, I would have to say that, if you don't have anything else to watch this might be a nice little diversion. It should be at the bottom of your list of things to watch though. I'll have to give Batteries Not Included a 6 out of 10. It won't make you bored, but it's not a great movie either.