A group of dated appliances that find themselves stranded in a summer home that their family had just sold, decide to, á la "The Incredible Journey", seek their young 8 year old "master". Children's film which on the surface is a frivolous fantasy, but with a dark subtext of abandonment, obsolescence, and loneliness.
Director: Jerry Rees
Stars: Jon Lovitz, Deanna Oliver.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092695/
Watched online, mediocre print.
8 songs in the Soundtracks; only 3 identify cast as performers, 3 don't identify a performer even though they have lyrics, and 2 are famous recordings from the past.
The score (non-songs) was richer than usual, and reminded me of John Williams, perhaps because this feels like a Spielberg boy's adventure. The composer is David Newman (b. '54), son of Alfred Newman, of the Newman musical dynasty, including Emil Newman, Lionel Newman, Thomas Newman, Randy Newman, Joey Newman. Also in the music dept for this film: Krystyna Newman, wife to David, listed as assistant to conductor (him).
The toaster's voice was DO, writer on 69 of 99 Animaniacs episodes. JL played the radio.
I'm not sure I gave this a fair chance, so I'll be generous on the rating. I didn't like the concept: anthropomorphic electrical appliances that strap a car battery onto a chair and get dragged around by a vacuum to find their former Master, a child now going off to college. But each appliance can move on its own; riding on the chair is just for efficiency. In fact, they all move and talk without electricity, so I don't know why the writers bothered with the battery. At one point the vacuum said the battery was getting run down, so they needed to rest. How young do you need to be in '87 to not know that a rest doesn't recharge a battery?
When we meet the Master and see that he's much older than the appliances were describing him, I wondered why it took them so long to decide to find him.
The adventure is fraught with danger, of course. I don't recall them boarding a faster conveyance until they're rescued from quicksand (with no residue) by a junkman, who gets them to a city, presumably the one they sought. Sure enough, Master is there, and goes shopping to this junk store for his dorm needs, and sees his old stuff on the conveyor belt to the compactor.
I guess I could suspend my disbelief if I liked the story/characters, but they didn't grow on me. And JL as the radio was as obnoxious as you would expect from his worst SNL characters.
Of course, I didn't look for deeper subtext as the synopsis writer postulates, because I didn't even plumb the text, much less the sub.
Remember, I'm being generous, in case I'm more in the mood for this next round. Rated 7.3 by 21.7k+ IMDb voters.
more & Disney, dir. Rees; 6-
