Robowar - Robot da guerra (1988)

User Rating:

3.6/10   

Director:

Bruno Mattei

Writers:

Rossella Drudi (screenplay)
Rossella Drudi (story)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

Plot:

A clone/mix of PREDATOR and ROBOCOP gone nuts jungle flick with an internatioanl cast, exotic locale and good electronic music. |

Plot Keywords:

Jungle | Soldier

Cast

Reb Brown	...	Maj. Murphy Black
Catherine Hickland	...	Virgin
Mel Davidson	...	Mascher
Max Laurel	...	Quang
John P. Dulaney	...	Arthur 'Papa Doc' Bray
Jim Gaines	...	Sonny Peel
Massimo Vanni	...	Larry Guarino (as Alex McBride)
Romano Puppo	...	Cpl. Corey
Claudio Fragasso	...	The Hunter (as Clyde Anderson)
Luciano Pigozzi	...	(scenes deleted) (as Alan Collins)

Also Known As:

Robowar (UK) (informal English title)

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

Italy

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Certification:

Germany:BPjM Restricted

Filming Locations:

Pagsanjan, Laguna, Luzon, Philippines

Company:

Flora Film

Goofs:

Factual errors: The closing credits switche Massimo Vanni with Jim Gaines.

Movie Connections:

Edited from Double Target (1987)

completely devoid of imagination, but with lots of explosions and 80's music!

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.