SummaryApartment block tenants seek the aid of alien mechanical life-forms to save their building from demolition.
Directed By:Matthew Robbins
Written By:Brad Bird, Matthew Robbins, Brent Maddock, S.S. Wilson, Mick Garris
*batteries not included
Metascore
Mixed or Average
54
User score
Generally Favorable
6.1
My Score
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Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
54
29% Positive
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
50% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
21% Negative
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
90
Not surprisingly, considering that it is a Spielberg production, Batteries Not Included is a handsome film, impeccably (and ingeniously) designed by Ted Haworth and enriched by a superb James Horner score that brings a melancholy tinge to its brassy big band sound. Batteries Not Included is in the best Hollywood tradition of raising serious questions in a thoroughly entertaining way.
75
Cronyn and Tandy rescue the movie from looking altogether like a retread, and the saucers do their part, too. Designed by Industrial Light & Magic, the visual effects wizards, the saucers swoop and vibrate and blink and purr and even have children, which they assemble out of old toasters and other househood appliances. "Batteries Not Included" is a sweet, cheerful and funny family entertainment.
60
Children may enjoy this, but their adult escorts will have a harder time...It's been well made and, especially in Miss Tandy's case, acted with a sense of fun. But the time for this brand of fantasy may have come and gone.
50
This film is so harmless it`s boring.
40
Robbins' handling of the human element is as sickly and soggy as a dunked doughnut, and the script makes gonks out of its characters. But the flirting frisbee scenes are pretty neat.
30
Batteries is a strange kids' movie, a queer mix of violence and otherworldly benevolence. It might have been a good idea, a story of the vanishing urban neighborhood and gentrification by tycoon. But half-pint aliens to the rescue? It's time E.T. went home.
20
Rarely has a children's picture been so stagnant, so bereft of passion. [18 Dec 1987, p.8]
User score
Generally Favorable
6.1
57% Positive
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
14% Mixed
1 Rating
1 Rating
29% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
Sep 7, 2024
3
Steven Spielberg produced this cliché laden, family-friendly sci-fi fairy tale, and it's got his fingerprints all over it. Loaded with plucky working class heroes, cute anthropomorphic critters, moments of agonizing forced charm and stereotypical corporate villainy, it still might have worked under a craftier director. Instead, a second-rate cast extracts every ounce of ham from a very dimly-composed script while they flounder around a slow, dull central storyline. The effects work is good for the period, a must since the real stars of the picture are the small, hovering mechanical aliens that drive the plot, but beyond that it's weak sauce even for a kids' picture.
Production Company:
- Universal Pictures
- Amblin Entertainment
Release Date:Dec 18, 1987
Duration:1 h 46 m
Rating:PG
Tagline:Five ordinary people needed a miracle. Then one night, Faye Riley left the window open.
Awards
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
Young Artist Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
