Powerful

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Ben the walking stereotype is in New York selling little editions of Number Five.There he meets one of Spinal Tap, and they go into business with Gibb to make more of the little Number fives. This all covers the sub-plot involving a jewel heist where some old boy called Oscar has hired two thugs to raid a bank.The only problem is, the building where these criminals were working has been taken over by Ben. And then all of a sudden, Number Five arrives and causes all sorts of xenophobic hilarity.Oh how I nearly smiled.....This was rife during the late eighties and the early nineties, a film that wasn't expected to succeed as well as it did (sister act, Wayne's world, Beethoven), did do great business and garnered a sequel.Some were okay, Bill and Ted delivered a good sequel, but this one fell into the category of great idea to begin with, but this is just scraping the barrel.Stevens does what he can with the material, but there is none, it's just a case of Johnny five doing what he did in the first movie, copying things from the TV, radio, and commercials, to comic effect.It was endearing the first time, but this just grates and annoys.There the token scene near the end where we think Johnny Five may get killed, but hen he goes all gold plated at the end.It's a dud movie, Sheedy can only be bothered to do a voice cameo, and it lacks any charm the original had.

(www.plasticpals.com) I must be a sucker for punishment because here I am, reviewing Short Circuit 2 (1988). This time around the writers copied the fish-out-of-water in New York City formula from Crocodile Dundee, which had been the surprise hit of 1986. Fisher Stevens returns in his role as Ben (thick accent in tow), who has lost his job at NOVA Robotics and is peddling a toy version of Johnny 5 on the streets. He gets swindled into a business deal with conman Fred (played by Michael McKean) to build a thousand of the toys in just one month for a toy company. That's a problem, because Ben calculates it will take at least a year to fill the order.A convenient plot device puts a pair of bumbling crooks underneath our hero's makeshift workshop. They're digging into the bank vault across the street to get their hands on some expensive diamonds. Fearing their plan will be jeopardized, the crooks try to scare them away by roughing up the place when they discover Johnny 5.Johnny 5 can build the toys in no time but gets distracted by what the city has to offer. The mandatory scenes of Johnny 5 causing a stir in public are present and accounted for, as he gets into trouble looking for more input. That wouldn't be quite enough to fill out a feature length film, so of course the burglars take advantage of Johnny 5′s gullibility to break into the bank. It's a by-the-numbers plot, but at least it's better than the first film (though, that's not really saying much).Of course Johnny 5 is still a great looking robot character, and it's easy to see why so many people love him. He even becomes the first robotic American citizen! It's a light-hearted kid's movie, so don't expect many laughs if you're over the age of 8.

It's rare a sequel exceeds the original, but this does in leaps and bounds. The lovable robot - wanted by the military in the first film - is shipped to Indian scientist Fisher Stevens in New York, taking to the streets of The Big Apple: wanting to be human like everyone else.But Number Five, now Johnny Five, has other problems: including bank robbers and helping his creator connect with a beautiful, ambitious climber set to buy toy versions of himself... or rather, itself... from Stevens and seedy partner Michael McKean. Director Kenneth Johnson, who successfully adapted THE INCREDIBLE HULK to television, does for Johnny Five what he did for The Hulk: adding, through interesting low-angle shots and character-driven perspective, depth and humanity to what had been, in both the Robot and Hulk's origins, merely child's play.

As much as I enjoyed the first movie, I had a feeling that getting the second one on DVD would be a mistake. I should have gone with my gut feeling. On the cover, it says that Siskel and Ebert have uttered that this may possibly be better than the first one. I really doubt that - someone please give me the reference if I'm mistaken. The problem is, as with Crocodile Dundee 2 and numerous other sequels, the purpose and originality of the first movie is the development of the characters. The quirks, social ineptitude, surprising qualities, cultural clashes, are what make the movie worthwhile and even enjoyable to watch. With a revenue success, far too often a sequel will appear. Again and again, it becomes clear that when you apply the lovable characters from the first movie to some formulaic plot in the sequel, it fails. It not only fails, it becomes painful to watch, going from one cliché to the next. Funnily enough, the kids seem to like it...