La Guerre des robots

Bad movie fans will appreciate this Italian attempt to make a quick buck on the popularity of "Star Wars." Everyone else should avoid it as they would a rabid weasel. Even Italian children, no doubt the film's target audience, must have felt insulted after the first couple reels of this low budget non-epic.

That being said, "La Guerra Dei Robot" does have a sort of cheesy charm. It's plot attempts to parallel the first "Star Wars" movie with truly hilarious results. Also the faux "Star Trek" make up of it's crew is funny in a painfully dumb sort of way.

In sum, unless you're a fan of crummy sci-fi movies, keep away from this one.

WAR OF THE ROBOTS is a total waste of film, not to mention the viewers time. Made in 1978, this Italian space "epic" looks like it might have been produced 30 years earlier. Everything about this film is terrible, including an incoherent script, bad acting, horribly done special effects (the Flash Gordon serials from the 1930's were better, at least they were in focus most of the time), extremely bad sound effects and dialogue dubbing. If one took all the worst blunders found in the bad Italian and Japanese sci-fi flicks of the 1950's and 1960's and condensed them into one film, WAR OF THE ROBOTS would be the result. Utter trash, avoid at all costs.

Poor dubbing, special effects, and acting- oh my! This is truly one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Clearly made in Italy and then dubbed over in America to hopefully make more more money, this is a horribly done copy of Star Wars. The "story" is as follows: A "Brilliant" professor and his "Brilliant" assistant are kidnapped by some guys with Blonde wigs on. Some space station attempts to save them. Hilarity ensues. Every once in a while, a bunch of colors will flash across the screen for half a minute. This movies is probably best to avoid if you experience seizures. Actually, this movie is probably best to avoid no matter what.

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...