ROBOWAR (1988)

ROBOWAR (1988)

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(Action, Adventure, How Many Bullets Can One Man Carry?) [PG-13]

Note: This is a made-for-TV movie that is given a TV-14 on streaming services. That is about the equivalent of the MPA’s PG-13 rating. 

We start by mixing up this little cocktail and we turn this hospital into a gigantic bomb!

In this one a commando team is sent on a mission and not given the real purpose. It becomes clear that they are outgunned and they believe it’s a warlord of some type that they are up against. Along the way, they rescue a United Nations doctor trying to fight disease in the region, but start getting picked off one by one. Later they are told they are up against a virtually invincible fighting robot that was designed by the military and has gone rogue. Can they make it out alive?

First off, this thing is purposely an Italian rip-off of RAMBO, PREDATOR, and ROBOCOP. Having said that, it’s actually not terrible if you love piles of 80’s cheese and some of the worst dialog ever written. The movie is filmed in English so there isn’t any dubbing in the American version. I don’t want to say the effects are “good”, but they do the job. The practical effects for the deaths are actually pretty effective and I think the gore in those sequences is what gets this thing labeled as horror by some. It’s really not a horror film though. It falls more along the lines of PREDATOR and ROBOCOP like I mentioned and I think it falls more into the “war” film category.

Some of the acting is ridiculously bad, especially when “Papa Doc” gets pulled underwater. There is another pretty bad overreaction sequence when Virgin sees a bunch of girls has been killed by warmongers in the area. Not saying it’s not horrifying, but the acting from Catherine Hickland (GHOST TOWN) is pretty crazy. She does a pretty decent job in the rest of the film, but that scene, man oh man. 

One thing this movie does really well is the soundtrack. It’s actually a bit better than a lot of 80s flicks that had a way higher budget. That film does get better as it moves along and the dialog actually improves slightly. The robot is a dude in a suit and apparently, he got so hot in there that he fainted twice during filming. The suit the robot is wearing isn’t that great. It honestly just looks like a dude in a slightly modified motorcycle outfit painted black and dark gray. I get that he was supposed to have a human face, but I think they just could have done a better job with the rest of the look. Then again, that is also what I love about the 80s, pretty much anyone could just grab a camera, buy some film, raid a radio shack and a few used sporting goods and Halloween stores, and make a movie. 

If anything one thing that is particularly annoying about this movie is the robot’s vocalizations. They almost sound like they were made for a kid’s movie and not a sci-fi flick. It’s really bad, like perhaps someone literally grabbed one of the people that do puppet voices for Sesame Street and hired them to work on this thing. 

Acting wise for the most part Reb Brown (YOR: HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE) is decent as Maj. Marphy Black. I also recognized Romano Puppo from ESCAPE FROM THE BRONX as Cpl. Neil Corey, but outside of Hickland, most of this cast is pretty much unknowns. 

Overall this one gets a 4 out of 7. It is far from the worst of the 80s B-movie pile and the ending is pretty cool, the soundtrack on its own is also a blast. Actually, now that I think of it, I guess this robot is actually more of a cyborg. Okay, that’s it, that’s the review. I enjoyed this more than I expected I would.
 

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