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.

At least it doesn't live up to its title, which is a good thing. Crash and burnnnnnn. On the other hand it might have been more exciting if it did. I don't know, but I remember liking this straight-to-video b-grade action / Sci-fi fare by Charles Band when I saw it for the first time many moons ago, but upon my recent re-watch I was left slightly under whelmed. Boy did it take awhile for something remotely riveting to occur. My excitement early on arose from catching a glimpse of a movie poster of "The Angry Red Planet" on the wall. Not once, but twice. Outside a pouting Megan Ward and Jack McGee (in a truly offensive mood), everyone else acts robotic. Is this to throw us off…? I don't think so. Bill Moseley is the life of the party… as what starts off as uncharacteristic (in a slumber mood) later on has you thinking now I'm watching Moseley perform. Paul Ganus is your typical handsome, but stoic lead who catches the eyes of the ladies (young and old). He doesn't do much at first, other than look serious. All in a good days work. Actually I guess sex was on mind. Nothing else. Nothing more. As after getting that out of the way (about mid-way through the movie), while lying in bed (for about 10 seconds) his character was thinking straight (well its either that or he's considerably slow off the blocks) and it came to him that something wasn't quite right (during a "heart-pounding" test set-up to find out if everyone trapped in this remote TV station was who they said they were). Now that he knows who the evil corporate Sythnoid robot in disguise is. Although we the audience (and Ward) have already figured that out long ago. It's time to be a hero. Jump out of bed, break the emergency glass and grab the shotgun. Then get pummelled and shot. Talk about an effective hero. However this is when things do liven up. Nasty jolts, stupid one-liners, robots going haywire and Ward making everyone around her look like dummies. "Hey, kiss this!". Director Charles Band does an economical job with J.S Cardone's material and recycles Richard Band's music talents. Visually is works cementing a futuristic wasteland, as the setting is taut and the paranoid unease is felt. In the dying stages you can see where most of the money went to and the effects of the battery powered tinbot put those recent CGI drenched transformers films to shame. Mildly amusing low-rent Full Moon fodder.

My review was written in August 1990 after watching the movie on Paramount video cassette.

Latest fantasy film from Charles Band is a well-executed but uninspired futuristic tale. It's going direct to video, unlike its recent predecessors from the Full Moon label.

Pic's claustrophobic format resembles scripter J. S. Cardone's previous efort "Shadowzone" in trapping a group of characters at a remote spot with something preying on them.

Story is set in the year 2030, when a technocratic government has outlawed robots and private use of computers. A motley crew is stuck at Ralph Waite's local tv station during a lengthy "thermal" (storm). A synth (robot) is killing the cast.

TItle "Crash and Burn" refers to a type of computer virus use to override the synth's programming (derived fro Isaac Asimov's Laws of Robotics) not to kill humans. There's an okay twist explaining the clue as to the synth's identity, but once this baddie is identified, the film's suspense evaporates.

Band gets good ensemble performances, especially from Waite as the rebellious figure. Young Megan Ward, cast as Waite's daughter, heads the cast of beautiful women, with both Eva LaRue and Katherine Armstrong offering diversion.

I really liked this movie, a typical B movie thriller of the early 90s

There's one thing i need to point out tho

In some European markets, this movie is officially called Robot Jox 2: Crash and Burn - here's the VHS cover - http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a277/lovegunner/203804745.jpg

It's interesting that Charles band directed the movie (he was Robot Jox' producer) and that Robot Jox theme plays in the opening sequence of the movie.

An official sequel?

I've never seen that title anywhere else than in Europe

Other than the musical theme, title and giant robot at the end, the movie doesn't have to do anything with it's prequel