Batteries Not Included on DVD

Here’s a gentle tale of friendly aliens come to earth, set against the background of a group of poor, dysfunctional people at odds with a greedy capitalist.

Sounds pretty typical for Hollywood, whose huge corporate entities have a habit of dumping all over other huge corporate entities. But this flick has more going for it than just liberal hypocrisy, and that makes it worth watching - though it's definitely not going to go down in history as a classic.

Its chief asset is Jessica Tandy, a wonderful actress who could express more with her eyes than most actors can with their entire bodies. Here she’s teamed with husband Hume Cronyn and plays an elderly lady facing increasing dementia in a world around her that’s increasingly demented.

She and her husband (Cronyn) live in a decrepit New York building that’s scheduled for demolition. They're surrounded by a motley assortment of neighbors who have their own problems which are magnified by the external forces working against them. Then a family of tiny alien machine-things shows up and provides the miracle they need in order to stay in their cherished home.

The characters include a cross section of politically correct poster people, such as the elderly, a mentally retarded man, a single mother-to-be. These are the gentle good guys, and the bad guy - the representative of the evil corporation - is anything but a gentleman.

We remembered this movie more fondly from our VHS viewing many years ago; but it hasn’t aged particularly well and, though gentle and warm and with its humorous moments, it tends to be overly sentimental and just too cute and predictable.

Still, it beats gratuitous violence and there’s something to be said for that. At worst, it’s a harmless 107 minutes in the home theater and at best it’s an entertaining enough fantasy from Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment - though it is definitely not one of his best. And after having seen director Matthew Robbins’ wonderful feature Dragonslayer, weity, despite it being anamorphic widescreen (16x9 TV compatible), is crummy. It’s grainy and smeary and pixilized; the image aspires to VHS quality and this is unforgivable in this day and age. At least it’s anamorphic…

The audio is better, though it’s also unremarkable. The box says it’s Dolby Digital 5.1 surround, and maybe it is, and while the quality is okay we’re hard pressed to find anything that really jumped out at us.

You do get some extras, which is always a nice bonus. There are some decent production notes, cast/filmmaker bios, film highlights and the trailer.

It isn’t enough to make us recommend this as anything more than a rental, however. Too bad. Oh well, this proves that even Robbins, Spielberg, and Universal can have an off day.

Batteries Not Included, from Universal Home Vide
107 min. anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1, 16x9 TV compatible), Dolby Digital 5.1 surround
Starring Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Frank McRae, Elizabeth Pena
Produced by Ronald L. Schwary,
Written by Brad Bird &Matthew Robbins and Brent Maddock & S.S. Wilson, Directed by Matthew Robbins 

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