Robot Wars

Some Japanese guy kidnaps people in his scorpion bot for some stupid reason and some douche bag who wants to rape a blonde woman must stop him. Not bad. Expected worse. What stands out is the special effects with the robots even though it's cheesy as hell. What lacks is its deficient story and plot. Not a wasted assimilation but I wouldnt get all horny over this $#!+ either. Just when its convenient.

I bought this movie at a flea market mainly because it had a neat box. It's really not all that good. Let me put it this way, the title is misleading. The giant robots are pretty cool. But you don't get to see them that often. This could have been a good movie but it isn't quite good enough to bother buying (or renting) unless your a hardcore sci-fi fan. Oh, and the acting is pretty bad, too.

Lightly entertaining but instantly forgettable follow-up to the earlier movie "Robot Jox". The story has to do with rebels dubbed "Centros" who are a threat to survivors of some sort of apocalypse. In this setting, guys like Drake (Don Michael Paul) function as pilots of enormous robot spiders that both transport passengers and can be used as battle vehicles. Drake meets crusading archaeologist Leda (Barbara Crampton), and although they get off on the wrong foot, it seems that romance will be in the air. Soon Drake's going to have his hands full battling a megalomaniac named Wa-Lee (Danny Kamekona).

Veteran film director Albert Band ("I Bury the Living") took the reigns of this one for his son, Full Moon head honcho Charles Band. While "Robot Wars" manages to be amusing to a minor degree, it's of no real distinction. It's very much a good thing that it runs a trim 72 minutes long. The cast selected is interesting: Paul (writer / director of "Half Past Dead") is a good looking but fairly bland hero, but Crampton of "Re-Animator" fame is spunky and sincere, and Peter Haskell ("Child's Play" 2 and 3) is a hoot as your standard issue greedy corporate creep. It's also amusing to see the two villains from "The Karate Kid Part II", Kamekona and Yuji Okumoto, acting together. James Staley ("Sweet Dreams") supplies the comedy relief, and Ms. Crampton and Lisa Rinna ('Melrose Place') supply the eye candy.

The two most successful elements here are typically excellent David Allen effects, and a soaring music score by David Arkenstone.

This may be passable enough for B movie junkies, just so long as they don't expect too much going in.

Five out of 10.

This barely one hour long movie contains a lot of innovative ideas, such as a gigantic passenger-carrying robotic spider. Creative camera work in the passenger compartment of the spider really conveys a feeling of motion. The music is another pleasant surprise, as these types of films often lack considerably in that area. Considering the budget, which was slim, it should be considered an impressive production on the whole. The dialog is the weak spot, lacking the humour of its predecessor Robot Jox. Most of the acting is somewhat lame, partly due to the lack of dramatic build-ups. (Actually, creating drama seems to be a problem in general for the imaginative director Albert Band). The special effects are good, but in the spirit of the eighties. I think David Allen, who made them, is a genius, able to create satisfactory effects from virtually no budget. Anyway, this film is well worth a look for true sci-fi freaks. Only.

This movie doesn't have an awful lot to do with it's predecessor "Robot Jox". This must be also the reason why its most common name is "Robot Wars" and not the alternate name "Robot Jox 2: Robot Wars".

"Robot Jox" was basically a fun movie to watch because it had a nice premise of giant robots battling each other in the near future. This concept has been abandoned for this movie and instead it features a totally dull story that besides isn't very original or cleverly written. A shame it tried to be so much different from its predecessor really, for else this perhaps could had been a more fun movie to watch.

Just like "Robot Jox" this is a B-movie but with as a big difference that it's just not a very good one. Perhaps this also has to with the fact that "Robot Jox" got made during the '80's, when B-movies still had a certain bit of charm and class over it, even though the movie got released in 1990. This really can't be said about this movie. It's just lame, badly made, poor looking and not exciting enough. It also has an ending which leaves you thinking 'This is it? That's all?'.

What the movie its story is lacking is good clear main plot-line really. Perhaps a good main villain would had been a good idea and some other stuff such as an actual point to the story, some action, or likable main characters.

Seriously what were they thinking when they picked the actors for this movie. All of them are simply not likable in their roles and especially Don Michael Paul is annoying as the main character, who behaves as if he's God's gift to woman and Mr. Perfect who can compete with anyone. Weren't they even simply able to get the actors from the first movie?

For such a futuristic movie, with a concept of having large battle droids in it, this movie surely is lacking with its action. Had they put some more and bigger action into the movie, the movie would at least had been a more entertaining one to watch. Instead now we have a movie that fails to impress in basically every way imaginable.

You can better watch a "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers" episode, for some more action and likability.

3/10

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