Roboman

Robowar (1988)

* (out of 4)

Maj. Murphy Black (Reb Brown) leads a group of men into the jungles where they can't possibly imagine what is about to attack them. Inside the jungle is an alien creature who will slowly stalk and kill them.

Plagorism is one of the most serious crimes that a writer can commit and often times it will end their career or at least put a black cloud over it. For some reason filmmaker Bruno Mattei ripped off countless movies in his career. Often times he would not only rip-off plots but also entire sequences, lines of dialogue and much more. With that said, for some reason Mattei is still a "legend" in his own way as bad movie lovers flock to his films.

ROBOWAR is a rip-off of PREDATOR but it also rips on ROBOCOP. The alien here stalks the people in the jungle just like PREDATOR but his outfit is pure metal like ROBOCOP. I can understand how some people would watch movies like this and have a good time with their badness but sadly this film isn't in that "so bad it's good" range. Instead, ROBOWAR is just a really low-budget movie and a really bad one at that.

The performances, direction, editing, story and pretty much everything else are downright awful but that's to be expected. What's so bad about this movie is that it really doesn't reach a sleazy level as the violence is rather tame and there's not much blood or gore. In fact, just take a look at a sequence where a group of men are shot up with some large guns. The men are hit with countless bullets but not a drop of blood spills.

The action scenes are all rather stupid but the ending is nice in terms of explosions. As far as the alien goes, it looks incredibly silly and it almost looks like a futuristic version of the killer seen in THE NAILGUN MASSACRE. I'm sure some might find a few laughs in how bad the movie it but sadly it's too boring to be enjoyed.

Pretty terrible Italian mash-up of "Robocop" and "Predator." Reb Brown, best known for "Uncommon Valor," Conan knock-off "Yor: Hunter from the Future" and the hilariously awful 1970s made-for-TV Captain America movies plays Maj. Murphy Black, the Arnold "Predator" analogue, leading a commando group on a jungle mission, only to find themselves being hunted by a deadly cyborg. Checking the film's credits, "Robowar" was directed by Bruno Mattei, who specialized in cheapie Italian exploitation flicks, ranging from women in prison to nunsploitation to zombie to mondo documentary to cannibal to Nazisploitation films. However, Mattei has made a few enjoyable films, but the biggest tipoff this film is going to be a terrible movie is that the writers are the same folks who wrote and directed "Troll 2," which if you're not familiar is widely considered the worst film of all time (yes, even worse than "Plan 9 From Outer Space"). Unfortunately for "Robowar" it's not really a so-bad-it's-good kind of film as is "Troll 2" so you can't even be ironically entertained by it. You're best off skipping this one, though if you really need an Italian cyborg movie, watch Sergio Martino's "Hands of Steel" instead.

Standard and mediocre cash-in on known American films taking parts here and there , dealing with a platoon : Massimo Vani, Romano Puppo, Mel Davison , Max Laurel, Gaines led by Major Murphy : Reb Brown assigned to a dangerous mission in the lush jungle . Along the way they meet and save a prisoner woman : Catherine Hickland, who at the time married David Hasselhoff, and all of them take on a lethal cyborg with fateful results .

This Robowar 1988 contains thrills , chills , gory scenes, jungle landscapes from Philippines , crossfire, violent deaths and lots of blown-up. It results to be an exploitative clone , rip-off of boxoffice successes , mixing scenes from expensive Rambo by George Pan Cosmatos with Stallone , Missing in action by Joseph Zito with Norris , Robocop by Paul Verhoveen with Weller and especially Predator by John McTiernan with Arnold . Played by an international cast and starring the hunk Reb Brown as one army man , giving a lousy performance and overacting, at times , as he's usually shouting and shooting . His best movie was Uncommon Valor , following several similar roles as brave heroes who frequent eliminate villain people such as : "Yor the Hunter from the future" , "Captain America" , "Captain America 2 death too soon" , "Death of a Soldier" , "Strike Commando" , "The Cage" , "The Firing Line" , "Street Hunter ," Last Fight to Hell", "Mercenary Fighters" , "The Cage 2 Arena of Death", and "Space Mutiny" . Support cast is formed by regular secondaries of the Italian B-movies, such as : Massimo Vanni , Romano Puppo , Luciano Pigozzi or Allan Collins , though the scenes of the latter were eventually deleted . And screenwriter Clyde Anderson or Claudio Fragasso himself who often used to play as cameos and brief interventions , in fact here performing the deadly Cyborg and he fainted at times , due to the real warm. All actors lost a lot of pounds when she worked on the film due to the sweaty , hot conditions of the Philippines jungles and extremely heat.

It displays an atmospheric cinematography by Riccardo Grassetti , shot on exotic location in Pasanjan, Laguna , Philippines Islands. Catching and thrilling electronic musical score from Al Festa , composed by means of synthesizer . The motion picture was regularly directed by Bruno Mattei , assisted by his habitual collaborator Claudio Fragasso who also wrote the screenplay along with his wife Rosella Drudi . Bruno Mattei was a hack professional who directed a lot of cheap films in all kind of genres, such as : "Cage Women" , "Hell of the Living Dead" , "Seven Magnificent Gladiators" , "Rats" , "Strike Commando I", its sequel "Strike Commando II" and several others . Rating : 5/10 , a regular and disconcerting production that will appeal to Reb Brown fans .

Viewing this film on Japanese video, I can see why this film never made it to America. (I hear bootleg copies are now on sale, so be warned). There is some scenes that rip-off PREDATOR as Reb Brown and Catherine Hickland battle a mumbling robot that doesn't stop. Romano Puppo (aka Gus Stone) being in this film was a tip-off that this was another italian film. This is one of the last few films made before the italian action craze ended in the late 80's. It's a shame for Italy had lot to offer, but United States video companies stop picking them up.

"Reb Brown stars in this action-packed adventure story of fighting men pitted against an unseen enemy, a force more powerful than the fiercest weapons. Recruited by the CIA to rescue hostages held by guerrilla fighters in a Central American country, Brown and his men encounter an enemy unimaginably more deadly than any on Earth - because the Omega One is not of this Earth!"

What you have just read (save the references to Reb and Omega One) is the VHS plot synopsis of the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle PREDATOR (1987) because that is exactly what this Bruno Mattei flick rips off! Why waste my time cooking up a synopsis, right? A virtual scene-for- scene, shot-for-shot remake of the big budget sci-fi epic, ROBOWAR is bad. So bad that it is amazing. There are some liberties taken with the "source" material though. Reb Brown's top secret unit is named B.A.M. (Bad Assed Mutherfuckers). When they assault the village, Brown throws a smaller knife into a mercenary and then quips, "Hang around!" as opposed to Arnold's "Stick around." Oh yeah, and the group's native empath is named named Quang and of Filipino descent. Sadly, no "What's got Quang so spooked?" line. Mattei usually wouldn't settle for just one flick to rip off and throws us a curve ball by also copying 1987's other classic sci-fi flick, ROBOCOP. You see, Omega One turns out to be part man, part machine. Even funnier, the human chunks inside are Brown's old Nam buddy Woodrig. And, yes, Brown does say, "Woodrig, it's you!"