Cherry 2000 (1987) (film review)
You know the usual romance story. Man goes home to his wife, she short-circuits and crashes. A problem with having a robot wife. Sam Treadwell (actor David Andrews) needs a replacement wife, another Cherry 2000 (actress Pamela Gidley). An obsolete model, so he goes to Gloryhole to find a tracker, E. Johnson (actress Melanie Griffith) to find one in Zone 7 so he can put in her mini-disk, only she wants him to come along to ride shotgun. This is the near future. 2017. All right, this film came out in 1987 and that 2017 was still considered a long way off. Our reality hasn’t quite turned out this way so maybe another 80 years and we could face a similar situation. I mean, who wants a wife when you can have an artificial one?
Unfortunately, they get split up when retrieving Johnson’s car and Treadwell ends up in Sky Ranch, run by Lester (actor Tim Thomerson), who has a tendency to kill anyone he doesn’t like. Johnson catches up and they flee, leaving some carnage. Lester isn’t happy. He sends two of his team ahead to capture them, while he and the others repair their cars. The chase is on and so much is spoiler from therein.
At the repair shop, Silm the repairman (actor Michael C. Gwynne) has Robbie the Robot and Gort in the background.
Considering this is all pre-CGI, the Nevada scenery is truly amazing. The effects are especially spectacular, especially when Johnson’s car is taken by an industrial magnet across a really deep valley and under attack.
The cast list is extensive with recognisable faces but really most of them are cameos.
The audio commentary is with TV critic Walter Chaw with director Steve De Jarnet. I wonder how the special effects folk got away with creating bubbles with toxic carbon monoxide? He let his production crew, like Julie Weiss, do what they wanted to do in creating the costumes and sets. Eight Mustang cars were used in the film. There’s a lot of useful information here and De Jarnet points out that many of the people went onto successful careers.
The other extras. A 13 minute interview from 2015 with actor Tim Thomerson explains how he started off playing bad guys in ‘Mannix’. He goes over most of the cast and how well they worked together.
‘Making Cherry 2000’ runs at just over 6 minutes with mini-interviews with the cast. The ‘Lobby Cards, Posters And Stills Gallery’ is just that although you do need to use the play button to go from one to the other.
I didn’t really know what to expect when I started this film but it moves from a calm beginning to something manic and homicidal and eyes frozen mostly to the screen except when I did a little typing. Don’t refuse the sandwiches.
GF Willmetts
June 2026
(pub: MGM. 1 disk 98 minute film with extras. Price: varies. ASIN: S1880008)
cast: David Andrews, Melanie Griffith, Pamela Gidley, Ben Johnson, Tim Thomerson, Cameron Milzer and many others
