ET, THE GOONIES, GREMLINS – back in the ’80s, Amblin Entertainment carved out a pretty solid niche by placing kids into otherworldly situations and spinning their stories into cinematic gold. However, looking back at the early output of Steven Spielberg’s pop-culture-sculpting movie powerhouse, one title stands alone for taking the opposite approach.
Released in 1987, Batteries Not Included switched the formula by swapping kid heroes for pensioner protagonists and pairing them with a bunch of cute, metal UFO visitors. In a crumbling New York tenement, we meet Frank and Faye Riley (played by real-life couple Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy), an elderly couple whose apartment building and “mom and pop” diner are under constant threat of demolition from pushy developers and their ruthless lackeys.
With Faye’s health rapidly deteriorating and closure slowly creeping in, all looks lost for this quaint corner of the