Robot & Frank
The landscape of cinema’s strewn with unlikely double acts from throughout the ages - from The Odd Couple to The Fifth Element, there’s nothing us viewers like more than seeing two people who just shouldn’t get along become the best of friends.
Today, we’re celebrating the impending release of Robot and Frank, an odd couple tale of a tired old jewel thief and his new robot helper, with a talent for lock picking, by running through our favourite unlikely friendships between man and machine.
- Huey, Dewey, Louie and Lowell - Silent Running
By far, one of the most unlikely friendships on this list is this four-way between three drones and a botanist aboard the Valley Forge.
Threatened with the destruction of his precious space forest, Lowell mounts a daring escape from his commercial freighter, training his three drones Huey, Dewey and Louie to look after the forest should anything happen to him.
What results is a perfect understanding between nature and machine.
Click here to buy Silent Running on DVD
- C3PO and R2D2 - Star Wars: A New Hope
Being an up-tight android in the middle of a galactic civil war is hard enough, but having to put up with a short, unintelligible idiot babbling on about old Ben for the best part of an hour is sure to get on anyone’s nerves.
However, by the time the Death Star’s done and dusted the two are firm friends, so much so that their friendship even endures into the past.
Click here to buy Star Wars: A New Hope on DVD
- John Connor and the T-800 - Terminator 2: Judgment Day
The idea of John Connor, destined leader of the resistance against the machines, pairing up with the T-800 (which, if you remember, killed his daddy) is almost as ridiculous as imagining Ripley and Xenomorph sharing a Sunday roast.
However, faced with the T-1000’s (Robert Patrick) carving abilities, young Connor has no choice but to accept Arnie’s help putting a stop to Skynet’s deadly research once and for all. Definite thumbs up.
Click here to buy Terminator 2: Judgment Day on DVD
- Ripley and Bishop - Aliens
Another James Cameron offering entered into the mix, as Ripley joins forces with her second least favourite ‘living’ being, an android. Following the betrayal of the Nostromo’s cyborg, Ripley (understandably) begins her return journey to LV-426 a little sceptical of her new metal mate.
Bishop and Ripley’s thawing of human-robot relations shows that to end prejudice, we just need to all collectively face off against a giant pissed-off Alien queen in a mecha suit.
Click here to buy Aliens on DVD
- Hogarth and The Iron Giant - The Iron Giant
When you’re assessing the suitability of potential friends, I think you’d be eligible for enforced solitude if your first thought was that of a 100-foot tall giant metal killing machine, but then again, if you’re Hogarth Hughes from The Iron Giant, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone (or anything) better.
Click here to buy The Iron Giant on DVD
- Marvin the Paranoid Android and Zaphod Beeblebrox - The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
For those of you who unfamiliar with the three-armed, two-headed one-time President of the Entire Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox, all I need say is that he’s one hoopy frood.
Marvin, on the other hand, is a cyborg down in the dumps; brain the size of a planet and nothing to use it for!
Though they may not see eye to eye on all matters philosophical, together they create an unstoppable force of optimism, cynicism and hilarity.
- Robot and Frank - Robot and Frank
One’s a crank old man with a colourful past. The other’s a helpful robot with a bright future.
Together, they are Robot and Frank. We can’t really give too much away, best rest-assured Robot and Frank is as heart-warming as it is funny.
Robot and Frank is released on the 8th of March across the UK.
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