The War of the Robots

Professor Carr (Jacques Herlin) and his attractive assistant Lois (Malisa Longo) are abducted by silver skinned aliens in bad wigs, who are later revealed to be androids ruled by a wicked empress intent on ruling the galaxy. Rather inconveniently, the professor is the only person alive with the know-how to prevent the potentially catastrophic explosion of a malfunctioning Earth satellite, and so a perilous rescue mission is quickly launched, with Captain John Boyd (Antonio Sabato) in command of the spaceship Trissa (the name of the company that provided the film with its funky PVC space suits!).

Never ones to ignore a trend, opportunistic Italian directors quickly jumped on the late-70s sci- fi bandwagon, churning out some amazingly horrendous films in the process; one such effort was The War of the Robots, a pulp sci-fi stinker that clearly aimed to mimic both Star Wars and Star Trek, but which missed the mark in almost every way imaginable, providing none of the spectacle, excitement and technical wizardry of those particular films, but plenty in the way of unintentional laughs as Boyd and his brave crew spout ridiculous 'futuristic' space jargon, are repeatedly duped by obvious traitors, and do battle with wave upon wave of inadequate androids that possess all the fighting prowess of a bath sponge (whether it be with a gun, a laser sword or a space-craft, the robots seem incapable of killing their enemies).

Other silliness includes a couple of pathetic space-walks, a Texan character with a distinctly un-Texan accent, a minor character called General Gonad (snigger), the dullest space dogfights imaginable, and a sub-plot that sees shapely crew-member Julie (Yanti Somer) holding a torch for Captain Boyd, who remains oblivious to her obvious charms until the film's heartwarming finale, when he finally realises that, despite a rather unflattering Ziggy Stardust haircut, she is a total babe (as are all the women in his crew, whose PVC space suits appear to be a tad tighter than those worn by their male counterparts!).