Cherry 2000 (1988)

Miss the 1980s with its frizzed hair and cheesed plot lines? Watched every Bruce Campbell movie ten times and need a break? Cherry 2000 is Mad Max meets The Stepford Wives -- with a bit of Blade Runner -- or maybe Tank Girl meets Romancing the Stone (with gender roles reversed). David Andrews is Sam Treadwell, a future-day nebbish who loves robot women -- specifically the Cherry 2000 product line. After he shorts out his vapidly cooing vixen during a frolic in wet soapsuds, two dunderheads from the office convince him to go out and find some "real women." (Don't miss Laurence Fishburne as an attorney in a scene that is a supreme critique of today's sexual mores extrapolated into the future -- where every aspect of an evening's encounter is contractually haggled out like fishmongers turned corporate sharks.) Melanie Griffith is E. Johnson, a tough-as-nails tracker (yes, even with her monotone baby voice) who agrees to take him through the wastelands to find a replacement robot. Her rocket-fueled Mustang is to die for (if you don't chuckle to death first). Secondary characters such as the rumored-dead tracker Six-Fingered Jake (Ben Johnson) and the creepy survivalist alpha-male Lester (Tim Thomerson) are colorful and aptly played. The nightclub and Sky Ranch locations show an inventiveness -- arguably either derivative or original but still inventive and therefore preferable to formulaic -- too rarely seen in 1980s celluloid. And if you're wondering about the turkey sandwiches, I think they're an indictment of the robot women's vapidity -- because of what is said after Lester "meets up with" another woman. The moral of the story is that real women drive hard, shoot hard, and love hard. Yes, Melanie Griffith is miscast as just such a woman -- but it's also good cheesy fun to watch. I liked Cherry 2000 as much as Robocop, Repo Man, or Buckaroo Banzai and would watch it again if I caught it on cable -- and might even rescue it from a discount DVD table. 4 stars.