Robowar – Robot da guerra (1988)

Robowar – Robot da guerra: Directed by Bruno Mattei. With Reb Brown, Catherine Hickland, Massimo Vanni, Romano Puppo. A clone/mix of PREDATOR, RAMBO, and ROBOCOP gone nuts jungle flick with an international cast, exotic locale and good electronic music.

“From Italian trash director Bruno Mattei (Hell of the Living Dead) and writer Claudio Fragasso (who gave us the legendary Troll 2), Robowar is a blatant cash-in on the success of Predator, with a touch of Robocop for good measure. Reb Brown stars as Major Murphy Black, leader of a group of mercenaries with very silly (nick)names (Diddy Bop, Killzone, Blood, Papa Doc, Quang) who are sent on a mission about which they have very few details, but which sees them coming face-to-visor with a high-tech renegade humanoid killer robot called Omega One.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAs the soldiers explore the jungle, encountering the charred corpses of victims of the malfunctioning machine, as well as groups of hostile guerrilla fighters, Mattei and Fragasso miss no opportunity to blatantly ape the aforementioned Schwarzenegger classic, with entire scenes and chunks of dialogue mimicked throughout (silliest moments: Brown throws his knife at an enemy and quips u0026#39;Donu0026#39;t move!u0026#39;, inadequately aping Arnieu0026#39;s u0026#39;Stick aroundu0026#39; gag; Quangu0026#39;s utterly pointless sacrifice).u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAs with many a Mattei film, there are plenty of unintentional laughs to be had at the sheer goofiness on display: Reb Brown, in his blue, sleeveless, cropped T-shirt, who looks ready for a pride parade; the supposedly cutting-edge Omega One, equipped with low resolution pixelated visual sensors and a garbled Speak and Spell voice-box that Stephen Hawking would laugh at; the group of marines wasting countless rounds of ammo shooting at the jungle while screaming; and Quang referring to himself in third person.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eGreat film-making it most definitely isnu0026#39;t, but one canu0026#39;t help but be entertained just a little.”