Kampf der Roboter

In the future year of 2030, a powerful organization called Unicom has seized control of the world after being driven to economic ruin following market manipulation ushered in by the computer age in conjunction with an ecological crisis where the Earth is now a scorched wasteland due to damage to the Earth's ozone layer. Tyson Keen (Paul Ganus) is a Unicom worker delivering freon to an independently owned TV station situated in an old industrial building whose owner, Lathan Hooks (Ralph Waite) has sympathetic leanings to a resistance group working against Unicom. When a heat spike is announced Lathan's granddaughter, Arren (Megan Ward), invites Tyson to stay. The group wait out the heat spike along with engineer Quinn (Bill Moseley), obnoxious tabloid talk show host Winston Wickett (Jack McGee), teacher Parice (Eva LaRue) and a few others, however when Lathan is murdered in the dead of night it becomes clear there's someone not human in their midst.

Following the bankruptcy of Charles Band's Empire Pictures, Band moved back to the United States from Rome to start Full Moon Pictures which specialized in the burgeoning direct-to-video market and forged a partnership with Paramount which thanks to parent company Viacom's holdings in Blockbuster made Full Moon (and sister label Moonbeam) titles a staple of Blockbuster shelves throughout the 90s. One of the final productions under Band's Empire was the Stuart Gordon helmed giant robot action film Robot Jox which was an expensive gamble for the Empire that ultimately sat on a shelf for three years until it was given a "fire sale" acquisition by Sony label Triumph Films and dumped into theaters in December of 1990 when the box office was dominated by Home Alone and Dances with Wolves. While the movie's box office was pretty paltry here in the States, Robot Jox most likely did good business on home video and the international market as Crash and Burn was marketed as a sequel to Robot Jox in Europe despite no shared elements with Robot Jox (save for the giant robot, but we'll get to that). Crash and Burn promises high concept sci-fi action in its trailer and box art, but is mostly just people stumbling around in dark industrial structures with maybe 3 minutes of the giant robot (if that).

The movie's world is a hodgepodge of post-apocalyptic sci-fi tropes that feel like they've been thrown in at random with the establishment of Unicom as a corporate/theocratic/totalitarian master that outlawed computers because of the market crash and robots because of the Book of Revelations (yes, seriously) coming off as pretty ridiculous and feels like the filmmakers couldn't decide on what kind of force controls this dying world so they said "meh, let's just stuff them all in there!" and called it a day. Then of course we have the production design which consists of what seems like an abandoned industrial plant given the barest minimum to be turned into a TV station and serving as the primary location of the movie for roughly 90% of the runtime. The movie then becomes a "locked room" murder mystery...that carries absolutely no weight since the trailer clearly shows who did what and why so the 50 minutes where our characters sputter around doing absolutely nothing is basically filler to get us to feature length. The movie does become a bit more enjoyable once the movie drops the pretense of being a mystery and allows the character behind the murder to cut loose and chew the scene, but it's pretty silly basically becoming a mixture of The Terminator and Freddy Kruger with just more budget conscious action scenes in the dark. And that giant robot featured prominently on the box art and in the trailers? A complete lie (kind of), the DV8 mining robot is brought to action for about 3 minutes during the climax to lift an antennae tower and crush an android with its foot before unceremoniously collapsing to pieces...people who bought this thinking it was a sequel to Robot Jox were most likely really disappointed.

Crash and Burn is a low budget slasher disguised as a sci-fi action film. The movie crimps from sci-fi films like John Carpenter's The Thing, The Terminator, and the Weyland-Yutani conspiracies from the Alien franchise and does the barest possible minimum to squeeze itself to 80 minutes and including only enough money shots to sucker in chumps with a trailer. Maybe this movie has value to riffers or a room with multiple people surrounding a coffee table covered with beer and pizza, but outside of that don't watch this movie.

The year is 2030, a remote TV station has been infiltrated by a Synthoid, a Terminator-like robot who is programmed to kill those who oppose the tyrannical Unicom organization.

With B film execution Crash and Burn steals some concept elements from Class of 1999, The Terminator, Robocop, Blade Runner and The Thing to name a few. Although it's slow-paced there's room for a gratuitous shower, electrocution scene, shogun action and stop motion animation, anyone familiar with the studio offerings will appreciate the pace and tone. Oddly dubiously marketed as Robot Jox 2 or from the makers of Arena (don't expect the fights of Arena or Jox) as it contains less than a minute of giant Robot action.

Director Charles Band (this generations Roger Corman) gives a tight little flick that benefits from being filmed on location giving it an almost cinematic feel. The shadowy setting gives it some atmosphere with a dusty desert setting bookending the film and the Synthoid is menacing at times - realised by some surprisingly good practical special make-up effects. Despite borrowing music cues from Richard Band's other Fullmoon film scores the music is effective enough.

Lead Paul Ganus as Keen wields a shotgun well enough but he looks like he's just walked off a Danielle Steele TV adaptation. Co-star Megan Ward as Arren gives a solid performance considering the sparse script. Supporting cast include Jack McGee and veteran actor Ralph Waite, Eva La Rue gives physical performances (and like Ward went on to do bigger things). There's also some genuinely humours lines from Bill Moseley as Quinn who ensures the title of the film is uttered in J.S. Cardone's dialogue.

Even though Crash and Burn doesn't pretend to be more than it is the casual viewer may be disappointed. All things considered, even with the future looking suspiciously like the 1980s, right down to the computer hardware, braces and hairdos it's one of Fullmoons better outings.

I really enjoyed this film, it was one of the more interesting "B" type science fiction movies I've seen in some time.

As others have noted, the film is set in the future, when giant robots control the earth. Unfortunately Johnny Sucko isn't in this feature, but the other actors make up for this loss. I do wish they'd have added a plot line explaining what happened to Johnny and also why the giant robot can't do his mega-punch anymore.

Megan Ward (any relation to Sela?) does a fine job as Erin. I can see why she's embarked on a fine career, with just the right mixture of emotion and sexiness.

The plot is a bit plodding in places, like most B movies. And the special effects leave more than a bit to be desired. But the concept is quite imaginative and I must say I was impressed with the take on how our society would develop.

The real discovery is the male lead, Paul G. Anus. I'm surprised that he hasn't shown up in other major roles, as he seems to have a certain magnetism. Maybe with his unfortunate surname he's just destined to be in gay porno or something.

I would definitely rent this movie again.

This early Full Moon effort has a Dystopian setting: in the Earth of the future, both the economy & the environment have totally collapsed, and an all-powerful organization, Unicom, runs everything. Some dissenters, speaking out against the big bad company, operate out of a remote station. They will soon be menaced by a member of their own group, who is secretly an android, or "Synthoid / Synth", with a murderous agenda.

Overall, the movie comes off as pretty familiar - paying tribute to both "Alien" and "The Thing" (there's even a "testing" sequence similar to that in Carpenters' film) - but it shows lovers of B movies a reasonably good time. It's one of Charles Bands' better outings as director, and the production gets great use out of its primary location.

Assets include typically fun David Allen stop-motion (a giant robot turns up at the end), good Greg Cannom makeup, another solid score by Bands' brother Richard, and a cast of familiar faces including Megan Ward ("Freaked"), Bill Moseley ("The Devils' Rejects"), Jack McGee ('Rescue Me'), Eva LaRue ('CSI: Miami'), John Davis Chandler ("The Outlaw Josey Wales"), and Ralph Waite ('The Waltons').

Viewers looking for their B movie fix could easily do a lot worse than this. At least there IS competence on both sides of the screen.

Six out of 10.

The cacksters that brought you Arena and Robot jox now bring you this. CRASH AND BURN.

When i was a kid, two films in Gold video, Cheadle Hulme, always stood out Arena and robotjoxs. My dad being a sensible man always refused to rent either of them; because they looked crap.

I have bought all of these films and have to say crash and burn is the worst of the lot. It was the giant robot that did it for me. Why did these people make loads of films about dodgy stop motion robots?

It says on the cover of the box "From the makers of Robotjox and Arena," like this is some badge of honour, trust me it is not. Robotjox had a touch of class but this movie is cack. Watch it for its badness. It seems to have been filmed in an old warehouse, that just happens to have a huge hulking robot rusting away in the garden. Aaaahh

BAD BAD MOVIE. Damn you Transformers you caused these films to be made.