War of the Robots (1978)

I like to think of myself as the Jackie Chan of B-Movie Reviewers. I'll explain. I'm not saying I'm a kung-fu master, or a stunt-man or anything like that. Jackie is well-known for being those things, for sure, but that's not what puts him at the top. His edge is his willingness to hurt himself for his viewers. He has fallen from buildings with no wires or CGI, been slammed on concrete floors, and even once nearly died when he fell from a tree in a stunt gone wrong in Yugoslavia.

Well, once in a while, I put myself through painful experiences for this blog. While I'm not popular or even paid to do this, I feel an obligation to try on obscure B-Movies in order to dig up treasures for others who might want to check them out. On occasion, I find something so wonderful, so monumental, that I believe everyone should experience it once.
Today is not one of those days.

In 1977, Star Wars burst onto the scene and changed the way we view movies. The summer blockbuster was born. Naturally, this precipitated a slew of imitators, most notably from Italian film-makers armed with a small budget and a gaggle of good-looking bad actors. There are some examples of good efforts, some not as good, and some that make you cry for the sweet release that Death would bring.

In 1978, Italy unleashed War of the Robots on an unsuspecting public to cash in on the Star Wars craze. The basic plot of this film involves a group of space pilots who chase rogue aliens across the universe to re-capture two friends, Lois (the apple of hero John's eye), and Professor Carr. The heroes are in a space station that is going to blow up soon, unless they get Professor Carr back in time. Why is the station overloading? And where are the robots of "War of the Robots"? I don't know.

The capture involved a group of terrorists who look like blond Aryans or something. They come in the dead of night, wearing shiny jump-suits and sporting blond bowl-cuts. There are maybe five or six actors playing these guys, and they are used repeatedly, making me wonder if they are clones, or what. I don't know.

This leads to one of my many beefs with this movie. The appearance of the blond bowl-cut bad-guys is so similar to some of the blond bowl-cut good-guys, it quickly becomes confusing on who is who. Did the Italian film-makers assume that in the future, everyone would be blond, and most would have a bowl cut? I don't know.

At any rate, our heroes hop in a ship and chase aliens along their known trajectory, and come across two ships. Now, if it were Captain Picard in this situation, he would hail them, and determine if this group of ships has their friends. Then, they would negotiate their return.

This is not Star Trek, though.

The heroes don't ask questions, they just blast away, killing the aliens quickly, and do not even ponder if they just vaporized their friends. At any rate, they decide to land on a nearby planet to check it out. Why did they choose the planet? I don't know. Once they are there, they do encounter inhabitants who attack them initially, because you know, it's their planet and the humans are technically invaders. After a brief encounter, we get a look at the inhabitants. They have in interesting look, having evolved the way cave salemanders have evolved, with weird-looking eyes. The makeup job was well-done:

As you can see, the effect is rather creepy, and one of the highlights. Back to the story...the leader of the aliens accuse the humans of being "men and women of Anthor". What does that mean, what is Anthor, and why is it significant? I don't know.

Soon, the blonde Aryan-looking dudes show up, wreaking havoc and fighting our heroes some more. During this segment, one of my biggest laughs occured. The heroes are inside the caverns while they leave behind a senior commander. He is supposed to be from Texas, at least in this American English dub. He has the funniest faux Southern accent this side of Nicolas Cage. His Texas-ness is stressed by the fact that when he is in charge, he feels compelled to remove his space boots, and put on cowboy boots. They go so well with his shiny space-suit.

Our heroes do eventually end up on the bad-guys' planet, and we get to see one bright spot in the film. It does boast some interesting set-design. This is before the days of CGI and elaborate back-drops. The set for the bad guys lair took lots of construction and design work.

The heroes have another fight with blonde Aryan-looking dudes, who this time, whip out light-saber looking weapons. Yay, now something I can relate to! They fight, and learn that Carr and Lois have either been working as double-agents, or are brainwashed by the aliens. It is never explained, but by now, my brain is mush, and I don't care.

Oh, and the aliens want Carr to build a machine like the one he built on Earth. I don't know what kind of professor he is, nor do I know what the machine is he built on Earth that the aliens want on their planet. Maybe it's a kickin' expresso machine, and they are jonesing for some good java. I don't know, nor do I care by now.

Still...light sabers! They fight the blond Aryan dudes, eventually breaking one of them open, and showing us that these are the robots of "War of the Robots". Finally, some clarity.

They escape, with the aliens in pursuit, and during the chase, now-evil Lois confers with the alien leader, whose name is Gonad.

I'm not kidding.

I'm not sure if the Italian dialect has a homonym for 'Gonad' that means something other than the American vernacular, but it is pretty funny, especially when Gonad is kind of, shrivelled and odd-looking. He actually looks like the Emperor from Star Wars:

The heroes fly away, have another space battle, and save the day. Oh, and there was another sub-plot about someone named Julia who also loves John, and appeared for about a millisecond in the beginning. She shows up and saves his useless life twice, and he decides she would be a better mate than the girlfriend-turned-Empress of the Aliens Lois. Whatever.

Lois turns on Carr and kills him, making me wonder if she is a triple-agent. I'm lost, and my eyes are bleeding. More battles ensue, and the good guys win. Can I go home now?

"War of the Robots" was made in Italy, and upon its release in the United States, the credits were re-worked to change the names of most of the actors to more American sounding names. For example, Giacomo Rosse-Stua was billed as James Stuart. Therefore, if you are a reviewer who is looking for background information on a given actor you might pull your hair out. That would stink. Again.

Bottom line, if you are interested in a nonsensical movie with some unintentional laughs, you can check this out. However, unless it comes out as an episode of Cinematic Titanic, Rifftrax, or Mystery Science Theater 3000 I'm not going near it again. Tread carefully at your own risk.

One-half out of four.