La Guerre des robots

After reading the reviews of the film on this site I must admit that I really don't understand some people.

When you rent/buy an Italian film, made in the seventies, called "War of the Robots", do you really expect to see Orcar winner material??

Of course not, you know from the beginning that is going to be a badly acted/directed/dubbed piece of junk. But what an entertaining piece of junk!

I've never seen so many men dressed in blue mini skirts in my life! And let's not forget the blue tights as well. it's like watching an episode of the Smurfs in Space!

I've never seen so many terribly crafted MDF settings/furniture since the last time i watched a home improvement show on British TV.

I've never seen so many stupid wigs since Cher's last world tour! And imagine the results when you use them together with silver space suits and silver body paint! Wow!

As you can understand I never even bothered to notice the plot or even the fact that the person who translated the script from Italian, probably didn't speak English.

But what really surprised me about this film is that even though we are surrounded by all this space hi-end technology, it seems that none of the female space crew even know what a push-up bra is, and the wonders it can do for your figure....

Call me crazy, but I found "War of the Robots" to be a campy charmer. While the plot--involving a crazy professor and an "empress" (who looks like Zora Kerowa's evil twin), a league of blind alien beings, and a league of Aryan robots--is negligible, the film possesses a low-budget spirit that carries it quite a ways. Sure, it feels like a rip-off of "Star Wars," "Star Trek," "Dark Star," and even "Cave Dwellers" (which came a few years later), but it's low-budget fun in the same way that playing with "A-Team" action figures was fun when I was 5. That, and the atrocious special effects, lousy dubbing, chintzier sets, and sci-fi tropes (ray-guns that are really nothing but souped-up flashlights) makes "War of the Robots" especially juicy for a MST3K-style skewering with a group of friends (one wonders how this avoided the Satellite of Love).

"If we maintain this velocity we'll catch up to them quite soon." "Have you notified the base?" "No, I haven't yet. Because I have a sort of strange presentment." "Is there something worrying you?" "Hmmm. I don't know, but I feel that my hands are tied." "In what way? How do you mean?" "As long as Lois is in their power, there's nothing I can do about it." "Obviously these damned aliens will take advantage of holding hostages to dictate terms." "If I were you, I wouldn't worry about that." "Let's just catch the spaceship and stop them."

Repeat these lines slowly for about 90mins with a sci-fi throbbing sound effect in the background and you'll have saved yourself time, 36p and a bit of bother...

Have you noticed that about half of these Italian sci fi movies have people sitting at their panels on the space ship, wearing helmets, and talking with their backs to us. Then there are the silly costumes and antics of the aliens. This film goes to some really low levels. It's about an intervention to save one space culture from another. There are two female leads competing for the attentions of the space hunk. There are a group of silly aliens who keep getting recycled (I'm sure there were only about five actors) and shot. There's a shirtless leader who doesn't dress the way the rest do (he looks like he may have just escaped from the gay pride parade in New York). I don't know. Do things like this make money for their producers. There is nothing here to maintain interest other than the cheese. I've seen so many of them that they don't entertain much anymore. Skip this one.

As I write this, the work in question is still playing back before my stunned eyes. I am not quite finished drinking in this cinematic masterpiece, and I already have to relieve myself of my chicken dinner.

On the more pleasant side, I have to say that the sounds in this movie are WAY rad in such that it is definitely an analog collection of Boops and BLEEPS to be recorded in one's spare time.

The acting is mostly sincere, although I had a hard time figuring out how the character's lips would switch from italian to english and back again while all in the same shot. huh?

I have to say my favorite scene (which just finished a few minutes ago) involved a certain, let's say, "reference" to a certain 'laser sword' from everyone's favorite gray-goateed' master of the pen <chuckle...>.

Credit is still due to the shot selection, although with certain scenes I was left asking myself 'what just happened' too many times to remember.

On that note I must bid adieu to the juggernaut of motion pictures that is War of the Robots.

Ciao baby

3 peter pepperonis out of 10