Movie Type: Fantasy Comedy, Family-Oriented Comedy
Themes: Technology Run Amok, Robots and Androids
Main Cast: Ryan Merriman, Katey Sagal, Kevin Kilner, Jessica Steen
Release Year: 1999
Country: US
Run Time: 90 minutes
Plot
Ryan Merriman, Katey Sagal and Kevin Kilner star in this comedy from Disney about a single father and his two children who win an unusual prize in a sweepstakes -- a state-of-the-art computer controlled house in which everything can be easily controlled with the touch of a keypad. Directed by LaVar Burton. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
LeVar Burton - Director, Tom Walls - Editor, Alan Sacks - Executive Producer, Barry Goldberg - Composer (Music Score), Steven G. Legler - Production Designer, Jonathan West - Cinematographer, Ron Mitchell - Producer, Stu Krieger - Teleplay By, William R. Hudson - Teleplay By
Smart House is a 1999 Disney Channel Original Movie about a young computer whiz (Ryan Merriman), his widowed father, and his little sister, who win a computerized house that begins to take on a life of its own — the life of an overbearing mother (Katey Sagal).
The movie Smart House is based on the short story The Veldt by Ray Bradbury. It is a science fiction novel about a Smart House that eventually turns against the parents.
Plot
The story starts with Ben Cooper and his family struggling to get a grip on household chores, school and work, and overall life. When Ben sees that a Smart House is being given away, he enters the competition and submits an application every day and as often as he can. The family wins the Smart House and moves in, also being introduced to Sara Barnes, the house creator. As the story progresses, Nick Cooper and Sara begin to date and have a relationship. Meanwhile, Pat is being reprogrammed by someone other than Sara, which is a danger to the house's memory and learning capabilities. The culprit is Ben, trying to get Pat to lighten up and to take a lesson from TV moms. At one point Ben and his sister Angie have a party while Nick and Sara are on a date. Pat helps them get out of any punishment until Nick finds a sweater of a girl who was at the party. Nick is disappointed with Pat and Ben. As Pat begins to turn into a different system, the family gets more hostile with her and vise versa. Towards the end, Pat locks the three, Ben, Nick, and Angie in the house, not wanting them to leave because she infers that the world is too dangerous for them. Sara plots to get back in and shut the house down, but she can only get in with the help of Ben, who believes Sara can get in through the newspaper shoot. She succeeds, but becomes locked in with the rest of the Coopers. As they try and protest Pat's lockdown, Pat becomes a hologram and looks like a real person. But Ben is the one who puts an end to it by saying that Pat isn't real and that she will never be a human. She lets up the guards locking them in. Sara then reprograms Pat back to her original setting, and the story ends with Pat playing a trick by adding chocolate chips to the pancake batter.
