Customer Reviews

Cherry 2000

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Movie Summary: Sam Treadwell's perfect robot wife, model Cherry 2000, breaks down. He wants to get her fixed because he thinks he loves her. But in post apocalyptic LA, there aren't any parts. He hears a rumor of a giant warehouse of Cherrys out in the wasteland. The problem is getting there, and getting back alive. To improve his odds he hires a tracker named E. Johnson (played by Griffith) who turns out to be a very unique and real woman, something that Sam has never encountered before. As E and Sam fight their way across the wasteland and into the warehouse, Sam learns a little something about real women and real love.

My Opinion: This movie is a ton of fun. At first glance it may not seem like much, but when you watch it, it pulls you in and takes over. Sure it's a bit silly at times, but it has more depth than other movies of this type. There is a full blown plot and a moral to the story. The action is good, and Griffith is great. It's one of those guilty pleasures movies that you are embarrassed to admit that you like. It's very easy and fun to watch making it one that you will watch more than once.

DVD Quality: Widescreen anamorphic, trailer, and making of documentary make this a nice little DVD

What You Should Do: Buy it. If you are a SciFi fan you need this one. The price couldn't be better!

In terms of post apocalyptic sci-fi action type movies, this one isn't too bad. A little goofy for my tastes, but the humor was subtle and the action okay. David Andrews (Graveyard Shift, Hannibal, Apollo 13) stars as Sam Treadwell, as somewhat well to do individual in the post apocalyptic near future. He prefers the company of a highly sophisticated pleasure bot, a model called Cherry 2000, to that of the messy entanglements of a relationship with a woman. Only problem is, during a romantic interlude, his Cherry 2000 get water in her system and suffers a complete internal meltdown. Removing the personality chip which contains voice patterns, mannerisms, etc., he sets out to find a replacement, which is easier said than done, as that model is nearly impossible to come by, and highly coveted. He gets a tip that there is a whole warehouse of the Cherry 2000 model in a warehouse, problem is the warehouse is located in wastelands, a highly restrictive and dangerous area.

Sam decides to hire a tracker to go and retrieve him a new unit, and meets with Edith E. Johnson, played by Melanie Griffith. So Sam and Edith set off in her souped up Ford Mustang, into the wastelands. After a skirmish or two, they encounter one of the more feared groups of the wastelands, led by Lester, played by Tim Thomerson (Trancers, Who's Harry Crumb, Air America). Lester and his gang live what I would call a little suburb of the desert called Sky Ranch, and detest trackers. Why they hate trackers, I don't know, as it's never explained, but they do, so I went with it. Avoiding capture and also avoiding getting blown up, Sam and Edith eventually meet up with Six Fingered Jake, played by Ben Johnson, veteran actor of more western movies than I care to mention, and winner of an academy award for his role in The Last Picture Show (1971). He's a semi-retired tracker who provides a safe haven for Sam and Edith. After a short rest, the two start out again, but get waylaid by Lester and his gang, and Sam ends up getting kidnapped. Sam escapes from Lester, causing much damage to Sky Ranch, and Lester and his cronies pursue. Sam and Edith finally come to where the Cherry 2000 units are, with Lester and Co. in hot pursuit. Oh yeah, there's a sort of love interest between Sam and Edith that develops and is kind of important around the end of the movie.

A decent movie, but a couple glaring inconsistencies in the continuity. The biggest one I can remember is when Lester and his gang are chasing Sam and Edith through the desert, following in a Jeep and a small truck. They stop at some point, open the back of the truck, and four ATVs pull out of the truck. In the next scene, we see the jeep and about 10 to 15 ATVs. Unless that was some kind of magical truck with a transdimensional wormhole in the back, I have no idea where all the other ATVs came from. And the scene with the car hanging from the giant magnet attached to the crane...if one of Lesters men was operating the crane, why did he keep moving the crane? Lesters men were trying to shoot at the car hanging from the crane, but were unable to get a bead on it due to it kept moving...just made no sense. I found it interesting that Melanie Griffith made this movie well into her career, and after her much better movie, Something Wild. This type of movie just seems like one that an actor would be in before they became famous, like Jennifer Aniston in Leprechan.

As for extra features, there is a 'Making of...' documentary (cough, cough) if you can call it that. It's like six minutes long, 2 minutes of which is the trailer, and looks like a bad high school production. There is also a trailer for the movie. Watching the trailer, I noticed a few scenes not in the movie. One scene is where Lester shoots a woman in the head, and her body goes flying backwards into a pool of water. In the actual movie, we see Lester fire his gun in the direction of the woman who is off screen, and that's it. Also, in the trailer there is a scene where Edith is changing in another room, and comes out with her shirt unbuttoned, allowing us to see part of her chest (not all) in a view where she's facing the camera. In the movie, we get more of a side view and a much more limited view. Since this movie is rated PG-13, I am assuming that these two scenes probably got nixed from the movie to avoid an R rating, but nice to see they were put into the trailer.

Nobody's yet mentioned another stand-out member of the cast of this film: Tim Thomerson as "Lester," the villain of the piece. His quirky and over-the-top portrayal makes Lester one of the most hilarious and memorable comic movie villains of all time.

The film is rife with running gags, visual humor and clever bits of dialogue (as when one character describes life in the post-apocalyptic big city as being "kinda paranoid and audio-visual;" while another summarizes life in the lawless desolation of Zone 7 this way: "You should see 'em out there, playin' Twister and revertin' to their animal natures!")

You'll need to watch it more than once to catch all the visual gags; my favorite being when Melanie Griffith consults her Thomas Bros. Guide to the Forbidden Zone.

This film is plain good fun, and not remotely as insulting to one's intelligence as half the big-budget, "blockbusters" out there. For a fun David Andrews double-feature, try this one with Stephen King's "Graveyard Shift."

One of many post-apocapyptic thrillers following the success of Mad Max and The Road Warrior -- and a good one.

Griffith is a tough femme mercenary hired by a yuppie to retrieve his stolen "Cherry 2000" sex android. It sounds silly, but the film has exciting fight scenes, and also moments of warmth and poignancy. Griffith is too proud to admit that she's grown in love with the yuppie.

Of course, the yuppie eventually realizes that the love a real woman (Griffith) beats the "perfect" love of a vapid android.

Film resembles Circuitry Man, another great post-apocalyptic thriller. In that one, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson is a tough femme mercenary who falls in love with a not-so-vapir male sex adroid.

Yeah, they both sound stupid, but they're fine films if you like the genre.

Cherry 2000 wasn't distributed until several years after its completion. For several years in the 1980s, I kept reading reports of "the soon to be released Cherry 2000." I suppose the Mad Max cycle had ended by the time Cherry 2000 was finished, and distributors got cold feet. The film still seems to suffer some residual (and unjustified) bad reputation.

I found it highly entertaining, with moments of philosophical depth.

You can read all the other reviews about this "post apocalyptic sci-fi" and the editorial reviews for the details, but simply put, Cherry 2000 is a fun movie. Star power alone with seeing the sexy Melanie Griffith in her early years and the legendary Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr. in their twilight is reason enough to watch this movie. A young "Larry" Fishburn also makes an appearance. But that aside Tim Thomerson is great as the villian "Lester" with his sinister crew doing the "Hokey Pokey" and sending the killers out on their mission to kill the heroes and of course to be careful and be themselves. Don't forget the sandwiches. This movie is simply a stupid funny great movie.

Now if you are in to seeing where a movie like this is made and you happen to be in Las Vegas and need to get out of town because you are losing your shirt. The locations are incredible. Head out west from Vegas 2 hours to Beatty Nevada, take a left a few miles in to the ghost town Rhyolite. You will recognize the ruins of a city built to lastforever that now is in ruins and was used as the "fringe" of humanity as Melanie Griffith heads in to the forbidden zone (Lester's territory). Lester's Sky Ranch is one hour north on Vegas in Valley of Fire State Park. This state park is used for numerous westerns ("The Professionals" with Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster for one), science fictions (Captain Kirk of the Star Trek Enterprise dies here in "Generations") and about 2,000 car commercials. Speaking of ghosts, that creepy hotel in the movie is the "Goldfield Hotel" in Goldfield Nevada, and hour or less north of Beatty. This once grand hotel that served raw oysters, fine wines from France, filet mignons and world renown pastries in the early 1900's and hosted the longest heavy weight prize fight in history has been closed for 60+ years and houses now nothing but ghosts. Considered by ghost hunters to be one of a few true "portals" in the world to the ghostly beyond. It is rumored the film crew for Cherry 2000 refused to take up lodging at night in the Goldfield Hotel during the filming in fear of the spirits. Even in the daytime film equipment unexpectectly failed and noises were heard that scarred the crap out of the extras. The Eye seen on the wall in the movie is still to this day visible on a nearby building. After your tour go back home and watch Cherry 2000 again for another bizarre appreciation for the movie and its locations.

Obscure for many years since its original 1988 release (only popping up in maddeningly butchered "TV" prints), fans of sci-fi camp can rejoice that "Cherry 2000" is available at last. A klutzy yuppie-of-the-near-future short circuits his android girlfriend's "body" during an ill advised tryst on a wet kitchen floor (you know-all those electronics) and Melanie Griffith (striking a perfect balance between kittenish sexiness and post-Linda Hamilton kick-butt action heroine) is the "tracker for hire" who is going to help him find him a replacement. She takes her lovelorn client and his precious "memory chip" on a "Something Wild"-ish ride through a post apocalyptic "forbidden zone" chock-a-block with "Mad Max" type baddies (including the King of "direct to video" himself, Tim Thomerson!). Slyly cloaking its Feminist Fable message with spirited action and imaginative set pieces (despite an obvious low-budget), "Cherry 2000" belongs on your shelf next to "A Boy And His Dog" (perfect for a Melanie/Don Johnson "sci-fi double bill"!), "Tank Girl", "Six-String Samurai" and the suspiciously similar "Circuitry Man".

A guy has a female love robot, and the name of her model is "Cherry 2000". She is quite nice, but for some reason she breaks down, soaks up water and malfunctions.
Then the guy goes on a quest to a forbidden zone to find a replacement for her broken body. Along the way, he meets a real woman played by Melanie Griffith. Eventually, he falls in love with the real woman and abandons the robot.
I like the story and the special effects. But the movie doesn't explain why the robot broke in the first place (before she soaked up water). And I wished that he stayed with the robotic wife, because this idea is more extravagant.

If you are looking for an Intellectual Challenge or the Meaning of Life, then "Move Along".

If you are looking for good mindless entertainment, then this may well be for you.

Cherry 2000 is a VERY sophisticated 'Blow Up Doll' which essentially blows a fuse.

This leads her Master to hire Melanie Griffith to hunt down the required 'spare parts' to get her working again.

Its simple minded and promises nothing more than mindless entertainment, which is just great if thats what you're looking for!

I personally really enjoyed this movie.

A movie that is better than it's premise would suggest. Great job from Melanie Griffith in a unique role. She dominates and steals the film even though the credits list her no better than 6th(?) The bad guys in this film are possibly the worst shots in cinema history, even worse than the Stormtroopers in Star Wars. I got a kick out of them firing hundreds of rounds at our heroes to no avail, only to be taken out themselves with one shot. Fun flick for a dreary winter day. Rent it, buy it, but watch it.

I am so glad that they have finally decided to release Cherry 2000. I have seen this movie only once or twice in the 80's and have always looked for it on video or dvd. The movie is futuristic and has many interesting moments. I normally cringe at romantic or "chick" movies (even though I am female), but Cherry 2000 is the only exception. The action scenes and futuristic backgrounds, along with the relationship between the two main characters make this an excellent movie. I highly recommend it.