When I first watched this in the '80s I rather enjoyed it as I recall and upon watching it again recently found that it had lost little of its charm.
The film opens with five new military robots being demonstrated to a group of politicians and senior officers. After they show how the can eliminate a variety of vehicles everybody goes inside and the robots are recharged... while robot number five is still connected to the generator there is a lightning strike which causes it to malfunction. After a collision with a rubbish disposal robot it ends up on the back of a lorry with the rubbish and is taken off the base. At around the same time it is noticed that he is missing and everybody at Nova, the company that made it, starts to panic. Skroeder, the head of security sets off with his men to catch it while its inventor Dr. Newton Crosby and his assistant Ben Jabituya follow its tracking signal to help them locate it. They find Number Five but it evades capture by jumping off a bridge and parachuting on to the back of a van driven by Stephanie, by now it is out of range for the tracker.
When Stephanie finds Number Five she initially thinks he is an alien and invites it into her house where he seeks input, he quickly reads every book in the house and turns to the television for further learning. When she learns that instead of being an alien he is a robot from a weapons manufacturer she is not impressed and calls them to take it away, however when she tells Number Five that he is to return to Nova he reacts in a way one wouldn't expect from an inanimate object... he shows fear. Realising that he is in danger Number Five takes Stephanie's van which he learns how to drive by reading the instruction manual. She manages to jump aboard as he drives off but they crash and are found be Doctor Crosby who deactivates Number Five and puts him on a truck bound for Nova. Five however manages to reactivate himself and escapes once again. He returns to Stephanie and is present to help rescue her from her abusive ex-boyfriend. She believes that if she can persuade Doctor Crosby that Number Five is alive then he well help them, unfortunately they meeting is interrupted by Skroeder and as well as rescuing Stephanie Number Five must confront the other robots, I won't say what he does to them as it would spoil one of the films jokes.
As stated before the film still seems charming and Ally Sheedy and Steve Guttenberg performed well in the lead roles and while watching it was easy to suspend disbelief and accept that Number Five was indeed alive. I'm not sure what to make of Fisher Stevens's portrayal of Ben Jabituya, on the one hand he was an amusing character, on the other it seemed very dated to have a white actor playing an Indian rather than actually employing somebody from the Sub-continent. There are one or two jokes some parents might find a bit racy but I think most children would enjoy this film as will plenty of adults, especially those who first saw it as youngsters in the '80.
The film opens with five new military robots being demonstrated to a group of politicians and senior officers. After they show how the can eliminate a variety of vehicles everybody goes inside and the robots are recharged... while robot number five is still connected to the generator there is a lightning strike which causes it to malfunction. After a collision with a rubbish disposal robot it ends up on the back of a lorry with the rubbish and is taken off the base. At around the same time it is noticed that he is missing and everybody at Nova, the company that made it, starts to panic. Skroeder, the head of security sets off with his men to catch it while its inventor Dr. Newton Crosby and his assistant Ben Jabituya follow its tracking signal to help them locate it. They find Number Five but it evades capture by jumping off a bridge and parachuting on to the back of a van driven by Stephanie, by now it is out of range for the tracker.
When Stephanie finds Number Five she initially thinks he is an alien and invites it into her house where he seeks input, he quickly reads every book in the house and turns to the television for further learning. When she learns that instead of being an alien he is a robot from a weapons manufacturer she is not impressed and calls them to take it away, however when she tells Number Five that he is to return to Nova he reacts in a way one wouldn't expect from an inanimate object... he shows fear. Realising that he is in danger Number Five takes Stephanie's van which he learns how to drive by reading the instruction manual. She manages to jump aboard as he drives off but they crash and are found be Doctor Crosby who deactivates Number Five and puts him on a truck bound for Nova. Five however manages to reactivate himself and escapes once again. He returns to Stephanie and is present to help rescue her from her abusive ex-boyfriend. She believes that if she can persuade Doctor Crosby that Number Five is alive then he well help them, unfortunately they meeting is interrupted by Skroeder and as well as rescuing Stephanie Number Five must confront the other robots, I won't say what he does to them as it would spoil one of the films jokes.
As stated before the film still seems charming and Ally Sheedy and Steve Guttenberg performed well in the lead roles and while watching it was easy to suspend disbelief and accept that Number Five was indeed alive. I'm not sure what to make of Fisher Stevens's portrayal of Ben Jabituya, on the one hand he was an amusing character, on the other it seemed very dated to have a white actor playing an Indian rather than actually employing somebody from the Sub-continent. There are one or two jokes some parents might find a bit racy but I think most children would enjoy this film as will plenty of adults, especially those who first saw it as youngsters in the '80.