Robowar - Robot da guerra

Ah, leave it to the directorial talent (or lack thereof) of Bruno Mattei to make me yearn for the Citizen Kane Reb Brown classics such as Space Mutiny or Yor the Hunter from the Future.

Think of this outing as a prolonged hike in the nature preserve. Reb is Murphy Black; the leader of commando group on a mission of...actually what WAS their mission(?) as it's evident that Reb himself wasn't even sure of. Heck, I don't even know if I'd let Reb lead me in a game of horseshoes let alone on a reconnaissance endeavor. No tears are shed on this journey as people are killed and you have no iota clue (or concern) about who they are or what purpose they serve except as bullet fodder. Thrill at the menacing Omega 1 (that reminds me to get multivitamins at GNC this week) as his state of the art pixelated kill-o-vision makes him...well, pretty lame. His 8 bit speech makes him sound like he contracted a form of Robot Tourettes. I can't be too angry with him as he helps to thin the herd thus providing a semblance of entertainment. Herr Mattei also had access to bio lab skeletons and you're bloody sure that he was going to use them!

All levity aside, many thanks to Smoke Manmuscle, I mean Reb for making this trial somewhat amusing. Whether it's his high shrilled helium-ated octaves of unforgettable lines such as 'Incoming, get out of here!' and 'Move out!' or his constant bickering with Mascher (less than Carl Weathers and more like Andy Richter's shady uncle), Murphy Black weathers the storm to the beat of a Casio laced soundtrack. Beware the true horror of Robowar: the cutoff shirt prone to exposing Rebbish midriff.

The horror...the horror....

Bruno Mattei must be the only person in on his own joke. I simply cannot understand how he made such a career out of such blatant ham-fisted ripoffs of famous Hollywood movies. Sure, Italy and The Philippines are known for cashing in on the latest trends - like with all the post-nuke flicks to flood out of both countries immediately after MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR. But no one until Mattei had the gall to just brazenly ape a popular movie scene-by-scene, shot-by-shot, line-by-line.

ROBOWAR is an obvious remake of PREDATOR, only changed slightly to accommodate the total lack of budget. Here it's a government-engineered cyborg out destroying massive amounts of stock footage from DOUBLE TARGET and STRIKE COMMANDO. Thankfully, the bulk of the actual film is largely stock-footage-free though you'll recognize a lot of the locations from other Mattei/Fragasso Filipino films like the old hut from AFTER DEATH.

The great cast (including Romano Puppo, Massimo Vanni, Jim Gaines, Max Laurel, etc.) actually turn in surprisingly good acting. Even star Reb Brown performs much better here than in his other Italo-Filipino outings. Not Olivier-quality of course, but COMPARATIVELY good. It's amazing too considering Mattei stages them either theatrically (everyone crammed into a master-shot) or shoots them shot-for-shot like scenes in PREDATOR. Good, yet idiotically staged action scenes come fast and furious but are interspersed with more than enough filler shots of Reb Brown and Co. wandering through the jungle.

The only real kudos go for the pyrotechnic crew for plenty of lovable slow motion explosions, as well as Al Festa and his wonderfully cheesetastic 80's synthesizer spectacular score. While nothing as heinously 80's as AFTER DEATH and COP GAME, it's in a pretty similar league.

People who like this film and get a kick out of line-by-line ripoffs should also seek out Mattei's not-quite-as-fun-but-still-hilarious SHOCKING DARK, which did the same thing with ALIENS and TERMINATOR.

From Italian trash director Bruno Mattei (Hell of the Living Dead) and writer Claudio Fragasso (who gave us the legendary Troll 2), Robowar is a blatant cash-in on the success of Predator, with a touch of Robocop for good measure. Reb Brown stars as Major Murphy Black, leader of a group of mercenaries with very silly (nick)names (Diddy Bop, Killzone, Blood, Papa Doc, Quang) who are sent on a mission about which they have very few details, but which sees them coming face-to-visor with a high-tech renegade humanoid killer robot called Omega One.

As the soldiers explore the jungle, encountering the charred corpses of victims of the malfunctioning machine, as well as groups of hostile guerrilla fighters, Mattei and Fragasso miss no opportunity to blatantly ape the aforementioned Schwarzenegger classic, with entire scenes and chunks of dialogue mimicked throughout (silliest moments: Brown throws his knife at an enemy and quips 'Don't move!', inadequately aping Arnie's 'Stick around' gag; Quang's utterly pointless sacrifice).

As with many a Mattei film, there are plenty of unintentional laughs to be had at the sheer goofiness on display: Reb Brown, in his blue, sleeveless, cropped T-shirt, who looks ready for a pride parade; the supposedly cutting-edge Omega One, equipped with low resolution pixelated visual sensors and a garbled Speak and Spell voice-box that Stephen Hawking would laugh at; the group of marines wasting countless rounds of ammo shooting at the jungle while screaming; and Quang referring to himself in third person.

Great film-making it most definitely isn't, but one can't help but be entertained just a little.

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.

There was very little chance of this film not being badass. A combined rip-off of Predator and Robocop directed by hack trash grand wizard Bruno Mattei and starring veritable Colossus of kick-ass charisma Reb Brown in the Arnie role, along with Massimo Vanni looking like Chuck Norris and the always reliable Jim Gaines, and a script by husband and wife super-scribes Claudio Fragasso (Troll 2, Zombie 4: After Death)) and Rosella Drudi. Oh and our Claudio is also the guy in the robot suit, credited under his regular pseudonym of Clyde Anderson. Anybody reading this already knows whether this film is for them or not, people generally are either Mattei fans or have sh!tty taste. But for your sake dear reader I shall go on, lest you not be quite convinced. The pacing is the only drawback here, the film takes a little while to really get into the groove so during the first third there's mostly the dialogue to go on. Fortunately the dialogue is worthy of Mamet, my favorite line being probably "You walk like a ruptured duck" . Clearly a film that should be shown to screen writing classes as an example of how to get this sort of thing right. The action is pretty steady when it gets going though. Things tend to alternate between people and trees being shot up real good, and trees and huts being blown up real good, with occasional people being blown up real good for varieties sake. Oh and there is a bit of knife work, but I don't know that I'd describe it as real good. It's OK though.Basically if you like films full of people walking around in the jungle and shooting at trees with occasional explosions and a robot that speaks in comically mangled digital gibberish then this is a film for you. I like all of these things, so Robowar was definitely a film for me. It even musters up occasional pockets of genuine excitement and suspense in amongst the hilarity and repetition, with a climax that is more affecting than one might expect. There's no gore other than mangled corpses and a severed limb, and no sleaze which definitely hurts things, but as far as goofy action trash aimed at the undemanding goes this is definitely a winner. Not as good as the classic Strike Commando mind you, but in Mattei rip off terms this is pretty darned decent. Way better than Shocking Dark at any rate. So watch it folks!