an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

'Heartbeeps' belongs on a short list of strange bad movies of which you have never seen their like and are likely to never see again. It is easy to dismiss a movie that is a total waste of time but even through it falls on its face you have to give this one points for trying.Somewhere in the future two robots named Val (Andy Kaufman) and Aqua (Bernadette Peters) wonder what else might be out there in the world besides a droll existence playing butler and hostess to their owners. So they break out of their slave state and go exploring.Along the way they meet an odd-looking comedian robot named Catskill and a boxy little robot named Phil who acts more or less as a surrogate son. Unbeknownst to all of them they are wanted. To prove it, hot on their tin tails is a mean robocop named Crimebuster.There really isn't much to say about 'Heartbeeps' except that Stan Winston's Oscar nominated make up effects are really very good. Other then that the movie wanders about searching for a laugh or two and comes off as a bad novelty item rather than a movie. This is the kind of bad movie that you can call terrible but not forgettable.

If you have witnessed Andy Kaufman's slant on comedy, you may understand why I avoided this movie of his for years. Actually, for most of that time, I couldn't see it even if I wanted to - video stores in my area didn't stock it, and it never appeared on TV. I had to rent it online when recently I finally got the courage to give it a try.My heart sank during the first few seconds of the movie. The comedy in this opening is both very familiar and unfunny, and the movie manages to sink further and further as it goes on. There's barely a story here, with the bulk of the movie consisting of the robots wandering around... and around... and around until you want to scream. It doesn't help that the robot characters are a turn-off. They don't have much of a personality (they seem very stupid - why should we care about stupid characters?), and their voices are very annoying to the ear.The makeup is good, I'll admit. But it seems odd that they spent time for the makeup when not bothering to present the rest of this world as a futuristic world (the vehicles of this world, for one thing, are present-day gas-powered vehicles.) It's even more odd to consider that no one involved with this movie realized along the way that this project was a train wreck.

OK, first, to all the haters: Get a life! I don't see why you even bother to post on these boards, when obviously you know nothing about cinema, robots, or people. This movie has an important lessons for all of us to learn about gender, stereotypes, relationships, and DESTINY. Really, we are all robots, programmed to respond certain ways to certain stimuli without thinking. How many times have we seen a sunset and made some trite comment without even thinking about it? I say, THANK YOU Aqua (brilliantly played by Bernadette Peters) for making me stop and think about the awesome power of mother nature. It's only when Val and Aqua begin to reject their programming that they begin to understand their true desire--to find love, and to flee the factory in search of a creative life. This movie should be mandatory viewing in prisons--just think of the dreams and hopes it could inspire in the inmates. maybe even they could overcome their "bad" programming and join the rest of us in a crime-free world.We can all learn a lot from these robots. I am a better person for Heartbeeps.

The film had NO help at all, promotion-wise: if there was an advertising promo on TV or radio, I didn't see/hear it. The only newspaper ad I saw was on it's opening weekend: a dingy, sludgy B & W head-shot photo of Andy as Val-Com, behind jail bars, with headline: "WANTED! Runaway Robot!" ( which was also the poster in front of the 3 movie theaters I saw it at --NOT the nice little color poster on this site, with headshots of all the cast, and cartoon of Crimebuster --which really wasn't THAT good--they OUGHT to have used an action scene from the film itself--didn't they have an onset photographer? A poster is supposed to HELP a prospective audience decide if they want to SEE the movie--there were SO many people who couldn't get into their sold-out choice, and wanted to know WHAT Heartbeeps was about--and that poster didn't help! That dingy pic, and the only other photos supplied to papers were so indistinguishable in B & W that they were worthless. ) There was NO trailer for the film: only a slide at one theater, consisting of the word "Heartbeeps" inside a heart-shape, with a Cupid's arrow through it, and one that was a totally black picture: just Andy and Bernadette's voices saying "Val-Com! My pleasure center is malfunctioning!" "So is mine; do you think we ought to tell our owners?" THAT is no help to people who hadn't been aware of the movie.During the filming, Andy told reporters that he couldn't eat, once his plastic lips were applied, so he would "load up on breakfast, and fast" during the day's shoot. I don't know WHAT Bernadette did: but at the time, I'd wondered why they didn't just sip protein drinks through long straws, or eat astronaut-style puréed food via tubes? Phil-Co, the baby robot, seemed to have been the pre-curser to Short Circuit's Johnny-Five, with the same eyes, similar face. I've been trying to find if they had the same designer, but no help. I have vintage magazine articles about the film, and the design team was immensely proud of their work, and were going for a special award for their innovative device to create stenchless "smoke" for Catskill's cigars. Just shortly thereafter, LucasFilm did NOT use that device, though they OUGHT to have, for Return of the Jedi's scenes with Jabba the Hut: a man created "steam" around Jabba, by blowing cigar smoke into a tube, joking that all he needed was a glass of brandy, and he'd be a happy man. I thought that LucasFilm's using of real tobacco products was insensitive to people who were upset by smoke. John Williams, who had then recently succeeded the late, great Arthur Fielder as the maestro of the Boston Pops ( which was THEN a ratings hit--but it never recovered from Fielder's death, and is now a shadow of it's former glory ), was using the show to promote films with which he supplied the music. He'd premiered "The Empire Strikes Back" score there; and you would think he'd have helped Heartbeeps along, by playing a few numbers there? The one thing that critics had liked of this film was Williams' score--yet it was NOT available for purchase! I saw one vinyl album, in 1982, with half Heartbeeps, half another film--but it disappeared. I only just tonight saw the CD listed on THIS site, and have ordered it. If I can ever get a scanner, and time to type out the articles, I'd like to create a Heartbeeps tribute site. I liked the movie, and don't care what dissenters say! The only trouble with the film, was, that near the end, it was messed up, logic-wise: the robots ran away from the factory to have the freedom to decide their own fate, make their own choices; yet, when the junkyard owners tell them that Phil needs to go TO the factory, to have a "purpose" programmed into him, they don't even question it; they just glance meaningfully at each other, and they go. Along the way, each of the adults lose battery power, and "die." They aren't REALLY dead, as they are robots, and only need new batteries, yet it is treated as "death," with little Phil crying over them, and rolling away. So, what was the POINT of this? Phil never gets back to the factory, and gets "a purpose!" AND of course, the junkyard owners COULD'VE driven them, or given them all battery recharges, with back-up batteries; but the real point was to have this poignant scene, where the robots all wore down, and Phil is left to cry. At the end, Val-Com is a golf instructor, and Aqua-Com is --I'm not sure what. Catskill is an ENTERTAINER--what ELSE is HE supposed to be? I'm not sure that they made it clear. The junkyard owners seem to be taking it easy, lying on chaise lounges, drinking lemonade from Phil, their "bartender." Val's and Aqua's new "daughter," Philsia--I think the name is--maybe it's Sylvania--doesn't seem to be much more than a table lamp. There is missing footage, which is sad--from photos I surmise that the stuff missing includes a sweet scene, where Phil is having a Christmas, with Val gifting him with a car's steering wheel; Aqua is supplying a horn; Catskill has taken the firefighter helmet to give to Phil, as we saw; and they have Christmas trees. I don't know if any missing footage supplies better logic, or if the writers just couldn't think of a better crisis/resolution. The film was trimmed to 72-75 minutes, to pair it with other failing films. No other reason than that. For a DVD, I would LOVE to be in on creating, as I want to see interviews with the cast/crew and John Williams, and the Merv Griffin interview. The making-of footage; and reediting and restoring the missing footage to make it better.