Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be gonna covering an Italian sci-fi action movie from 1988. That movie is "Robowar". And I'm being a bit cautious with that year because Wikipedia is saying that the movie came out in 1989, yet almost every other website I've come across says that it came out in 88. So, just for safety's sake, I'm gonna put the more popular one on here and hope that they're right and that Wikipedia just made a mistake with their year choice.
So anyway, moving right along here, I do know a couple of things about this movie. First of all, I do know that this movie was directed by infamous filmmaker Bruno Mattei. Now, what's strange here is that even though he's listed in the synopsis on the back of the DVD case I have here, his name is not listed in the director's credit. Instead, the name I got here is listed as Vincent Dawn, which I'm going to assume is his surname, maybe. I don't really know why they had to list his name that way. I mean, the guy was still well known, even back then, so I guess maybe it was either his request that he wanted his own named removed or something to that effect. Again, I don't know why exactly his name is not listed here in the director's credit, but I'm going to assume that there had to be a reason for it.
But setting that little issue aside, I can also tell you guys the plot to this movie. According to what I read on the back of the DVD case here, the plot is essentially about a team of commando's performing a rescue operation in the jungle, and they're also being a pursued and hunted by a robot that is also apparently half-man. Now you're probably reading that little synopsis I just gave out and it sounds really familiar to you. And you'd be right on that, because this movie basically just comes out and says that it's a mashup between "Predator" and "Robocop". Mind you, I've never seen either one of those movies, yet I am familiar with their plotlines. So for this movie to mix and match both together here might be kinda interesting, even if the plot is more or less just a knockoff of "Predator".
Now I'm hoping that this movie is at least sorta decent. I don't know if it's gonna be any good. Although considering that it is from Bruno Mattei, it could lean either way here. So, I'm just gonna dive right into this one here and see how it plays itself out. The only way I'm gonna know for sure if this movie is at all watchable is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Robowar".
2 minutes later
OK, guys, I know it's very early, but I feel the need to address this. Now I'm going to assume that this orange filter I'm seeing here is suppose to be this robot's vision. Except, it's vision entirely pixelated, which makes some things hard to see. Also, this robot voice, I guess, sounds incredibly garbled and kind of annoying, too, since I can't understand what the hell it's trying to say. So far, guys, we're off to a little bit of a rocky start here.
3 minutes later
Wait, so our team of commandos is called "BAM", which, according to this officer, is known as "Big Ass Motherfuckers". OK, that is hilarious as shit. I really was not expecting that at all.
13 minutes later
Well, guys, I am willing to say that while the movie is a little bit dull right now, I am willing to say that the music here is pretty decent. You guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, but this little track here that's currently playing is not too bad. So, I can give one positive to this movie so far.
8 minutes later
Oh my god, is that the actual robot that's been tracking them?! That looks more like over-bulked dude wearing black and is wearing a motorcycle helmet that's also spray-painted black. My god, that looks so fucking stupid, and yet, I kinda sorta like it. Well, the design anyway. Still not a fan of the garbled robot voice and orange pixelated vision that it has going on. But at least the design is sorta cool in a goofy sort of way.
5 minutes later
OK, I have a dumb question that is too late to be asking now, but where did all those people come from? You know, the bandits that were chasing after these people and killing them. Where they hell did they come from? Moreover, since this robot occupies this island, you would think that it probably would've discovered them sooner. Then again, I honestly don't know how long this robot has been on this island by itself, so it's very well possible that it hasn't been there for too long. But still, I would like my first question to be answered. Is there a village of sorts that I'm unaware of? I'm really sorta curious here.
12 minutes later
Well, guys, it took well over 40 minutes, but we actually have one of our soldiers finally killed off. Granted, considering he had a bad leg from earlier, I'm kinda surprised he wasn't killed off much sooner. But hey, at least we can add one to the kill count. Well, unless you don't count all of the foreign soldiers that were just slaughtered by our commandos anyway.
10 minutes later
Bray: There's no blood, there's no body, there's no traces at all! We didn't hit a damn thing!
Well, no shit you didn't hit a damn thing! You and your commandos spent half a minute shooting at the same spot that Corey saw the robot from earlier. And instead of pursuing it, again, you spent the last half minute hoping for some kind of results to happen as you were shooting at the same damn spot! My god...guys, this movie is becoming stupider with each passing minute and I'm not really sure if I'll be to handle more of this stupidity.
20 minutes later
Well, Mascher is now dead, and probably the device he had with him is also gone, too. That totally wasn't a waste of fucking time. God damn, this movie is slowly becoming worse, guys, and I'm honestly glad there's only over a little over 20 minutes left to go here. Maybe something interesting will happen then, but at this point, I seriously doubt that.
3 minutes later
So Quang just literally stood there and, instead of actually going out fighting, he just screamed as the robot, or the Omega-1 as it's actually called, kills him off screen. Wow, that was just fucking stupid as hell. Guys, at this point, I want this robot want to win and just wipe out the remaining two left. That's how much I'm beginning to despise this movie.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Robowar". I'm gonna go ahead and shut the movie off now...OK. Wow, um...it's safe to say, guys, that I'm quite disappointed in this one. I mean, sure, I wasn't expecting it to be good, but part of me was hoping that this thing was going to be at least fun on a cheesy sort of level. And there are instances of that sort of cheesiness in here. Unfortunately, however, this film is plagued with a lot of problems that stops this thing from being fun to watch.
Let's start with the writing. Now as I mentioned earlier, this film claims to be a mashup of "Predator" and "Robocop". And sure enough, this movie is pretty much just that. You have our company of commandos traversing through the jungle while being stalked by the Omega-1. While at the same time, you also have our robot, which is pretty much just a fourth-rate knock off of "Robocop". So yeah, originality isn't strong with this one. However, I still think this movie could've done something decent with it, since it isn't really hard to ripoff "Predator" and "Robocop". The latter, in my opinion, I've seen done quite a bit. So this movie could've done interesting, but unfortunately, like I just said earlier, this movie has a lot of problems that stops it from becoming so bad it's good.
To start with, the pacing here is really uneven at times. There are quite a few scenes in this movie where you will see our soldiers walking through the jungle trying to track down the Omega-1. Unfortunately, these scenes just do nothing pad out the runtime. The only thing that kinda saves it is the music, which I'll talk about later on when I get to it. But still, we have those kinds of scenes where it'll just slow the film down to a crawl. OK yes, it's very possible that those kind of scenes were in "Predator" as well, but if I had to wager a guess, I would say that "Predator" somehow did this better. And my theory is that they kept you on your toes as the tension builds. And while I can see minor glimpses of tension going on in this movie, it's not nearly enough to make it interesting, nor does it make you care about any of these characters.
Which then brings me to my next point: All of the characters in this movie are bland and shallow as shit. Nobody here has an interesting personality, nor do most of them have any sort of depth that makes you want to care about them. The closest that you get is with Marphy, because you later find out that one of the soldiers that was killed in the jungle was Marphy's close friend and comrade. And while I could go further into it, I won't do that for the sake of spoilers because, well, it's not really that difficult to put two and two together. Another one would be the blonde-haired chick named Virgin. Because Virgin was one of the people that was being chased down by this gang of foreign soldiers I mentioned earlier. And while you don't learn anything about where they came from, you do at least learn that she, and a few other people, were sent in as volunteers from the U.N. to help out the people at remote villages and they had built hospitals there to treat the wounded.
Unfortunately, however, that really isn't enough to make you want to care about her, because she, along with Marphy, are also bland as all hell. The only one who came close to having a personality of sorts was Mascher, the guy who was sent along with Marphy's commandos because, apparently, you learn that he was the one who was involved in the development of Omega-1, and throughout the movie, he becomes more of a selfish asshole. Which may not sound like much, but he honestly was the only one who had a semblance of personality to him. Everyone else, however, not really. These commandos may be known as "Big Ass Motherfuckers", but they're completely fucking boring at the same time since none of them have any sort of depth to them at all.
So yes, guys, writing here is a complete disappointment. Despite this being a mashup of "Robocop" and "Predator" it really doesn't pull this concept off very well. And while it's certainly far from the worst thing I've seen all year, it's still poorly written, even for a movie that was meant to be a cheesy sci-fi action flick. And as for the acting, well, it's kind of a mixed bag here. I wouldn't really call any of the acting here "good", but it actually does have a semblance of it being so bad, it's funny. It ranges on either being over-the-top or hammy. Which might sound like it's the same thing, however, I don't entirely see it that way because as long as you're not overdoing one or the other, it actually ends up being kinda funny. And I will say that, again, none of the acting here is good, but it still retains that B movie level of hammy acting that I actually do enjoy. So, as much as I would like to dump the acting here, I'm actually going to give it a bit of a pass here because it's the kind of acting I do enjoy.
Special effects are actually pretty decent. Mind you, this is a movie from Bruno Mattei, and that generally means that you're working with a low budget movie no matter what. This movie has a lot of pyrotechnic explosions that would make Michael Bay cream himself with. It also has visual effects every time our robot shoots his laser gun, and that actually looks really cool. The gun itself is also pretty cool, too. I wouldn't mind having a replica of one of those myself. As for the costuming, well, it's overdone, especially with the soldiers pads, because they're the kind of shoulder pads you would see football players wear. At least, that's I want to say, however, these kinds of shoulder pads that the robot wears are pretty damn huge, which would make it difficult for actual football players to wear while they're running out on the field. At least, that's what I would envision anyway. But yeah, the costuming on our robot is mostly black-looking. I have to imagine that some of it had to have been spray-painted black. Otherwise, I would be genuinely shocked if all of that was pure black from the start. But anyway, the costuming, I will say that I do like it for how goofy it looks, though it is a little bit overly bulky and overdone, as well.
Let's talk about camerawork next, because there's two things I need to bring up here when it comes to this film's camerawork. See, as I mentioned earlier, the orange pixelated vision you see is suppose to be the robot's vision, and it obviously looks terrible because you can barely see shit. And I still stand by that, however, there is one brief moment where that actually could've been helpful. Because there's a scene in the film where you are in the robot's POV as it's walking through the jungle. And as it turns it's position, you briefly get to see a person, possibly a man, wearing a brightly colored suit and tie and I have no idea who the fuck that was. My guess is that it's suppose to be the guy who's either operating our robot from behind the scenes or he was put in that shot without realizing it and it made that brief moment look incredibly awkward, and I'm shocked that nobody happened to notice that during editing because it's too fucking easy to notice! How the fuck anyone got away with that shit is fucking my brain here. It's so simple to edit that out and you could *still* have your robot walking and turning it's head without that random stranger in the shot. But no, it's in the film unedited, and it looks so out of place here.
Lighting here is actually really good, because a lot of this movie was obviously shot outdoors in the jungle, so I kinda expected the lighting to be really good here. Sound-mixing here is mostly pretty decent. The music here is actually pretty decent, too. It has a lot of late 80's trashy sounding rock music and some synth as well, and it's actually not too bad here, which is what also what helps accompany those scenes I mentioned earlier where our commandos are just traversing through the forest. Unfortunately, however, there is one track that gets played on a loop about 3 times and it kinda tells me that they extend it in a way to where it didn't cut off awkwardly. But outside of that, though, the music here is still decent, so at least its kinda something.
So, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Robowar"? Well...I'm inclined to say no. However, if you're somebody that likes these sort of B movies, and you don't care that if it's taking concepts from "Robocop" and "Predator", then sure, I could probably say it's worth checking out at least once. And once is being generous, because I personally don't see myself ever watching this one again. Which is really disappointing to say because I wanted to like this movie. I wanted to like it enough to where I could watch it again and again for a good laugh. Unfortunately, however, there's not enough of it here. And also, this movie has too many problems for me to not overlook it, so I'm probably not gonna end up watching this one again. That being said, though, it could be decent enough to where you could watch it and riff on it with friends on a bad movie night. If you're not into that, however, you can probably skip this and stick with movies like "Predator" or "Robocop", or both if you have them together. For me, though, I'm gonna go and watch another low budget B movie, and the first thing I'm thinking of is "Chopping Mall". I'm gonna go and watch that next as soon as I get done with this review.
Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment