Electric Dreams

Running Time: 95 minutes.
Media: File Download.

Anyone born in the late 70's, like myself would probably have been exposed to this song in some time of their life, and wondered "Hey, wasn't there a movie based on this song?"

Indeed there was my little movie addicts... Electric Dreams pushed the boundaries of cinema with Virgin Films debuting with this movie as its first... I remember recording this on an old VHS recorder when it was on Channel 10, I would have been maybe nine years old then. I loved the movie immensely, and for the first time in about 27 years, I've seen it again from start to finish... 

Miles Harding, played by a somewhat then (and somewhat still relatively) unknown Lenny Von Dohlen, is an architect who decides to buy a computer to help re-organize his life, update his security, automate his home, and to also help with him in the design of a new earthquake-proof brick. After Madeline (a cellist, played by the then 23-year-old Virgina Madsen) moves upstairs, all hell breaks loose... An accidental spill of champagne on the computer's circuitry as well as an overload of information from Miles' company server turns his computer sentient... Artificial intelligence at its best, but unlike some other films where the intelligence is instantaneous, the computer (who eventually becomes known as Edgar by the end of the film), has to learn like everyone else...

Eventually Edgar becomes sentient enough to make Miles' life hell, play music, take over the house, and fall in love with Madeline (something Miles is against, particularly because Edgar is making his life a misery)...

The film makes me smile even now, and with computer graphics that at that stage were comparable but not as great as say Tron was... and cool music by Jeff Lynne (of ELO fame) and Culture Club, this movie will make your heart reach out to Edgar... Having said that, I found Von Dohlen's portrayal of a bespectacled socially-inept nerd kinda irritating... It's only the talent of Bud Cort (who voices Edgar) who seems to save the day by playing off the nerdiness of Miles. There is one other thing that seems to keep me from giving this 5 stars, and that's towards the end, the final sequence, where people are dancing like crazy to Phil Oakley's "Electric Dreams" song. It's... a little overdone... That's just my opinion... Maybe I'm thinking like this because it's over a quarter of a century later since I first saw it, I don't know... but it's kinda weird to me now... But if I'm docking half a star for that and Miles' character portrayal, it's a small price to pay. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry... and it will make you nuts ;) Enjoy!