Rating: 3/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2017 | 50/52 | Robert Z’Dar
The year is 2017, the near future! Sam, a recycling exec, rides home in his futuristic car thingy while his Cherry 2000 puts on her lipstick and red dress. He enters with a bouquet of plastic flowers, and they share a metal canister of wine. She starts the dishes and begs Sam to kiss her, so they start going hot and heavy in the kitchen. The dishwashing apparatus is overflowing, sending waves of bubbles onto the floor. They playfully roll around in it until the liquid causes Cherry to short-circuit.
Sam takes Cherry to a maintenance specialist, who is unable to repair her but gives Sam her chip containing her vocal patterns, reflexes, and personality. Unfortunately, manufacturers discontinued the Cherry 2000 model in favor of more, uh, “direct” companion bots. The repairman shows Sam some updated models, but for Sam, it’s Cherry or Bust. With Cherry’s chip, Sam can hear her voice but nothing more. The repairman locates a defunct warehouse in Zone 7. Sam can hire a tracker named Johnson, located in the town of Glory Hole, to guide him through the area and protect him. By the way, the repairman has a Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still and Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet!
So, Sam packs his guns and hits the road. Glory Hole has a Western vibe, with horses on the street and business signs swinging in the wind. Among those businesses is E. Johnson, the tracker who never says no. But when he enters, he discovers Johnson is a girl, but she’s got the experience. The only problem is that she’s demanding that Sam tag along. Though reticent, when he sees he has no better options, he jumps into Johnson’s modded ‘65 Mustang and races into the wasteland.
Will Sam get his Cherry 2000? Or will he learn to have feelings for a “real” woman?
The film uses the companion bots as a means of exploring how American manufacturing traded quality for cheaper, outsourced labor, resulting in products that give out more quickly. In this reality, people must recycle everything due to economic downturns and supply shortages. Since this movie came out, we’ve experienced greater and greater planned obsolescence, and with the tariff malarky in the USA, we may see a greater emphasis on recycling consumer goods.
Blade Runner 2049 explored a similar concept, and both films indulge in the male gaze while discussing how our culture commodifies women’s bodies. At least 2049 had the intent to interrogate it despite failing to do so. The 80s were a strange nexus with their depictions of female sexuality. On the one hand, sex comedies and slashers became more mainstream, increasing the amount of nudity we saw on average. But at the same time, the AIDs epidemic and Reagan’s family values put massive restrictions on what sexuality could look like, reinforcing many heteronormative ideals. That comes through in this film through the choice of the “real” thing over the robot and the restoration of the nuclear family. The women who survive are the ones who adopt traditional gender roles, including making food, tending to the house, and performing other unpaid domestic labor disguised as “wifely duties.”
Coworkers approach Sam about going to the Glu Glu Club after work. At the club, women approach men for sexual acts, but the bureaucracy and paperwork involved in even a one-night stand are complicated, where every sexual act performed must be stipulated beforehand. In a post MeToo world, this joke about shared consent feels off—I’m genuinely not sure what it’s trying to say other than, “Women are too much work! You gotta care about their wants, too!” The men talk about sex bots like car boys talk about their cars.
Whatever happened to pride in workmanship?
The film feels a little like Tank Girl in its budget post-apocalypse aesthetic, with heavy doses of Mad Max in the wasteland. The aesthetics sort of taper off once Sam and Johnson hit the road. The first ten to fifteen minutes are where the best stuff is. Although at the Glory Hole Hotel, the innkeeper keeps a cat in a watercooler jug—I’m assuming she put it in there as a small kitten, and it grew too big to escape. It’s so upsetting!
The car and plane stunts are pretty fun! They don’t do a whole lot for me, but they add to the spectacle and grounding this movie’s reality.
** Actor Talk ** I’m only realizing now just how weird Melanie Griffith’s acting career has been. Also, I’m not sure, but it looks like she’s wearing a hoodie with the word ‘DIGNITY’ stenciled on it. It’s very Target-brand feminism, and I’m not even sure how intentional the feminism is. Laurence Fishburne appears as a lawyer at the Glu Glu Club, who drafts the contract for Bill and Amy for a one-night stand. Robert Z’Dar looks absolutely unhinged. Unbuttoned leather button-up tee, short shorts, boots, and a neon green tool belt full of tools. It feels weird seeing Tom Thomerson as the bad guy when he was the lead in Trancers, a similar movie to this in that the first act is where the best stuff is.