Micro Men

2009
7.4| 1h24m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 08 October 2009 Released
Producted By: DSP
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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In 1979 Clive Sinclair, British inventor of the pocket calculator, frustrated by the lack of home investment in his project,the electric car, also opposes former assistant Chris Curry's belief that he can successfully market a micro-chip for a home computer. A parting of the ways sees Curry, in partnership with the Austrian Hermann Hauser and using whizz kid Cambridge students, set up his own, rival firm to Sinclair Radionics, Acorn. Acorn beat Sinclair to a lucrative contract supplying the BBC with machines for a computer series. From here on it is a battle for supremacy to gain the upper hand in the domestic market.

Genre

Drama

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Micro Men (2009) is currently not available on any services.

Director

Saul Metzstein

Production Companies

DSP

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Micro Men Audience Reviews

Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!
Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.
Aiden Melton The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.
Curt Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.
Glyn-52-910242 I grew up in the era where myself and my friends were playing and swapping Sinclair Spectrum games with each other, as well as during the infancy of using BBC micros at school. If you are of that same era, then Micro Men will seem like it was written for you. It's just perfection! It's factual, funny, and jammed full of references to the 1980's computer era. Even the music fits perfectly with the theme and date of the story. Martin Freeman and Alexander Armstrong play their roles incredibly well, as do all the other characters. Some people may criticise the accuracy, but at the end of the day, it's a story about a 4 or 5 year period squashed into about 90 minutes, so some creative writing had to occur in order to make the story flow. But overall it tells the story very well and accurately. There are some parts that I actually remember myself from the day, such as the fight at the 'Baron of Beef' which I remember reading about at the time in 'Crash'. If you still have a fond spot in your heart for your old ZX Spectrum, then you'll love Micro Men. It's one of my top films/documentaries of all time, and I always find myself watching it every few months. I've oribsbly watched it 20 times now, and it never gets boring! I love it. :)
S Jackson Thanks for such a great piece of entertainment. There were lots of funny bits in this film, largely due to the acting of Sinclair. It was also light-hearted with a feel good factor at the end with people making up to each other and with Sinclairs quotes about life - "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?".Some great 80's music as well.Even if you were'nt into home computers at the time, then this is still a good drama.
MtlDty What could have been an interesting docu-drama about the birth of the UK computer industry, instead turned into something unintentionally farcical.In its efforts to create drama the film pitches Clive Sinclair as a cut-throat rogue, battling against one-time colleague Chris Curry (played by Martin Freeman). Freeman seems to be settling into being typecast into roles where he plays lovable harmless, guy next door types, and this film fits his role well.Unfortunately, Alexander Armstrong struggles to make a convincing Clive Sinclair, no doubt hindered by the terrible prosthetic bald head/wig and ridiculous accent. Its possible the prosthetics may have prevented him from turning his head and his performance seems terribly stiff throughout. The viewer is left with an unfair impression that Sinclair was a humourless, uncharismatic maniac - flying off the handle at the slightest upset.A lot of the comedy in the film (at least the intentional comedy) seems to come from situations which are unfortunately completely unbelievable. Clive screaming down the phone and then launching it (cordless apparently) through a door for example, or the ridiculous attempts to stall the BBC before the boffins at Acorn realise that the key issue preventing a computer from working is a huge wire that needs cutting in two.Its a shame that the film hides the technical breakthroughs that were made in that period with mumbo-jumbo references to computer chips, and reduces the creativeness of these industry leaders to simply picking the right advertising poster to use.
graspee This was a generally enjoyable watch and I'm grateful that anyone would make a programme on such a "niche" topic, however it was not without flaws. For a start, as has been mentioned by other reviewers, Sir Clive is painted as borderline psychotic with serious anger management problems, whereas Curry is some kind of super-good Luke Skywalker of the computing world. I'm sure it can't have been as clear-cut as this. It's also true that Alexander Armstrong's acting is very mannered and feels like something out of a comedy sketch show, while Martin Freeman gets to act much more naturally.The second problem is really just an anachronism caused by poor library footage placement. At the computer fair/exhibition we see the team telling reporters about the capabilities of the new Acorn Atom, and we also see Clive Sinclair talking to the Sinclair User journalist about issues to do with the "new" ram pack for the ZX81. Even leaving aside whether these two events happened at the same computer fair, since blah blah artistic license etc., there are two pieces of library footage shown, as if they are taking place at the same event. The first piece of film shows some schoolboys using some computer that I can't identify from the clip, playing a game, then the next clip shows a man trying out an Amstrad CPC464. This computer wasn't introduced until much later: 1984 in fact and is really out of place. I don't know about other people but it caused me anguish seeing it.