ROBOT WARS (1993) * ½

In the future, a giant robot scorpion is relegated to being used as measly public transportation.  On one outing, the head of robot affairs stupidly allows a foreign dignitary to pilot the robot, and he predictably hijacks the automaton to use for his own sinister purposes.  In order to stop it, the robot’s original pilot Drake (Don Michael Paul) and a reporter (Barbara Crampton) have to find another giant robot that’s been hidden somewhere in the desert.  

Although Robot Wars is only seventy-one minutes long, it feels much longer than that.  It’s a sequel to Robot Jox, a movie I haven’t seen, but if this flick is any indication, I’m not missing much.  Most sequels would at least leave a couple of breadcrumbs to fill in audience members who haven’t seen the first movie.  This one doesn’t.  It just throws you into the deep end and expects you to swim.  I sunk to the bottom pretty quickly.

It also suffers from a bargain basement budget, a thin plot, and a hero who’s one of those arrogant, douchebag assholes that were all-too common at the time, which makes him hard to root for.  The whole thing feels like they started filming on a Monday and had it on video store shelves by Friday.  The crappy costumes, shoddy sets, and paltry plot wouldn’t have really mattered if the robot stuff was tip top.  The stop-motion effects are pretty good when you take into consideration the meager budget the special effects team had to work with.  However, the title Robot Wars is really misleading as there is only one robot battle in the entire movie and it is really brief and anticlimactic.  Robot Skirmish is more like it.  

At least Barbara Crampton and Lisa Rinna are around as eye candy.  Since this was strictly a PG-rated deal, their futuristic jump suits stay firmly on, and aren’t revealing in the slightest.  I’m not saying a little skin here and there would’ve won the Robot Wars, but it certainly would’ve battled the boredom.

AKA:  Robot Jox 2:  Robot Wars.  AKA:  Steel Robot 2.