Reviewed on 06-16-2020
In this book you get the *The Batteries Not Included triple crown. Reviews of the film, the novelization, and the soundtrack.
Can you tell I have a fondness for this late 80s heartfelt gem from Amblin Entertainment, director Matthew Robbins, and his team of screenwriters, Brad Bird, Bent Maddock & S.S. Wilson, and story originator Mick Garris?
Batteries tells the story of group of tenants
in a rundown vintage apartment building, each of them down on their luck, each
of them hitting rock bottom. Each of them with nowhere else to go. And if life
hadn’t beaten them down enough, they now have to contend with a real estate kingpin
named Lacey, who has hired local thugs to try and muscle them out of the only
home they know (think Donald Trump 1987, before he became a dime store Mussolini
and when just a scumbag NYC conman).
The
cast is anchored by Hollywood veterans and real life husband and wife Hume
Cronyn and Jessica Tandy who play Frank and Ray Riley, long-time residents and
owners of the first floor diner. The diner is being crushed because Lacey has
leveled the rest of the neighborhood to make way for his vanity project. Faye is
suffering from dementia. Both are hurting from a tragedy in the past. Things
could not be bleaker.
Cronyn
and Tandy are sensational as are the rest of the actors who play the lost souls
of the seemingly doomed building, including gentle giant Frank McRae as a punch
drunk ex-boxer, Elizabeth Peña as a young pregnant girl abandoned by her rock
star boyfriend, and Dennis Boutsikaris as a painter looking for inspiration.
And
inspiration does come in the form of miniature UFOs that float into Faye’s open
window one night and change the lives of this group of kind-hearted people
forever. Watching them pull together and rally around the new visitors as Lacey
closes in, makes for an entertaining, emotionally potent movie experience.
The
pre-digital visual effects by ILM are an absolute delight. As is the wonderful score
by James Horner (reviewed elsewhere here). The seamless effects, Horner’s
sentimental strains, combined with the strong performances and Matthew Robbin’s
pitch perfect direction, make for a potent emotional cocktail. Batteries is a movie the kind of sneaks
up on you. It makes you feel—in a good way.
It may not be Close Encounters or ET, but *Batteries Not Included is a sweet, unsung gem in the Amblin catalogue. It will make you feel good. I promise.
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