Roboter mit Herz

I am an elementary school teacher. I show this movie every year to conclude my unit study of the country of Japan. It is excellent because it isn't a movie typically already viewed by my students. They laugh (and cry) all the way through it. After viewing it, they always ask me "Where did you get this movie?" It is about a little girl, little boy, and a robot getting lost in Japan. The girl loves the robot, but there is an "evil person" after the robot strictly for profit. So the little girl and the robot run away (and soon befriend a little Japanese boy). I recommend it to anyone that can find a copy of it. It is very hard to find.

This is a story about friendship between an American girl and a robot named "Too Much", and enjoyable enough if you like Robot movies or "B" Sci-Fi movies. The plot is heartwarming and very much lovely, including some kind of misunderstandings about Japan. The soundtracks are good, especially for "Fun In Japan" and "Dear Friend".

It is sad that this movie is almost unknown even in my country, and above all, this is the last appearance of Bridgette Andersen on the screen. She's gone forever.

My review was written in September 1987 after a screening at Movies at Town Center multiplex in Boca Raton, Florida.

"Too Much" is a feeble comedy for kids about a little girl and her playmate robot's adventures in Japan. Modest Cannon offering is a summertime territorial release.

French writer-director Eric Rochat (who previously helmed "The Story of O, Part II" at the other end of the audience spectrum) has concocted a very flimsy storyline in which cute Bridgette Andersen is in Tokyo with her parents (dad's on a business trip) when "Uncle" Tetsuro (Hiroyuki Watanabe) gives her a prototype robot as a gift. She exclaims "You're too mch", so it's named Too Much, or TM for short.

There follows a series of slapstick misadventures as the robot refuses to leave her when she's due to fly home to America with her family. On the run, the twosome are helped out by a young Japanese boy in avoiding the grasp of evil scientist Prof. Finkel (Char Fontana) and his goonish henchman Bernie (Uganda).

Silly windup is right out of a Gammera monster film: heroes are holed up in a department store with lots of toy robots for a confrontation with riot police, only to be saved by hundeds of Japanese kids showing solidarity with Too Much.

Title amply describes Rochat's treatment of cute heroine Andersen, a pleasant moppet, she becomes grating with sweetness by film's end. Clutzy dialog is not enhanced Joan Laine's puierile narration voiced by the heroine. Scenic Japanese locales are photographed in documentary fashion, with music video-style editin to a peppy score by George S. Clinton. Gags are frequent but unfunny.

I saw this movie about 10 years ago when I was 12 yrs old. I saw it on show time and fell in love with it. I've been wanting to get a copy of it but can't seem to find it anywhere. Not even on Amazon. Why is that?

I guess it wasn't a very successfully movie when it was released in 87'. But it was very rare when I saw it, the picture seemed very wide and the color seemed dull almost like a studio cut version. Anyway I would recommend this movie to anyone who can find it. Bridgette Anderson last movie was very sad to know that, b'cuz she seemed so alive in this movie and the little Japanese kid does he still act whatever happen to the cast of people who did this film.

This Cannon production, produced by the notorious Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, doesn't seem to have received much of a theatrical release in North America. Not only that, the movie has never been released on VHS or DVD in North America. After tracking down the movie and watching it, I think I know the answer to those puzzles - this is one terrible movie. The main problem is with the screenplay. The movie seems to be making things up as it goes along, and this result in the movie not having much of a plot (it's mostly the characters wandering around Japan), characters that are poorly developed (especially the little Japanese boy and the bad guys trying to steal the robot), and failing to convince us of the friendship between the little girl and the robot, the last being the supposed heart of the movie. About the only thing of interest in the movie is that we get to see a lot of Japan, from the big cities to the countryside. But I think even viewers who have an interest in that country will find the bulk of the movie too painful to sit through.