Metacritic reviews

One of the nicest things about the movie is the way it maintains its note of slightly bewildered innocence.

The story gets silly from time to time, stretching credibility to the breaking point, but the final result is an old-fashioned love triangle made new by the third party's being electronic.

For all the liberties it takes with what the computers of that era could really do, Electric Dreams offers a portrait of our relationship to technology that’s fairly prescient—while still being silly in that early-’80s Radio Shack kind of way, of course.

Electric Dreams can be trusted to provide some idle amusement, particularly from "users" cautious enough to keep both their demands and levels of resistance set at low-to-modest -- probably the ideal setting for summer moviegoing in general, come to think of it.

Unfortunately, Electric Dreams has another thing in common with most rock videos: It’s strong on music and visual effects, while somewhat lacking in story development.

Dated of course, being typically 80s, but maintains a certain charm.

In the failure of Electric Dreams to blend and balance its ingredients properly, plot elements are lost (the brick), credibility is overtaxed (the lovelorn computer), and what remains is high tech without being high art.

Electric Dreams tries to be as up to the minute as the latest rock video. But it looks more like a tired holdover from the ''psychedelic'' 1960s, another time when frantic visual effects were all the rage, and people rarely stopped to wonder what the point was.

Photographically busy, though to no meaningful purpose, mildly amusing at best, the piece finally expires with what could be, but probably isn't, a parody of a feel-good ending.

If Electric Dreams is indicative of what MTV alumni are going to do with the big screen, the big screen is going to be in big need of something to keep it from shrinking to the size of a guitar pick. [21 Jul 1984]