Woodyanders Review of The War of the Robots

The War of the Robots (1978)

A hilariously horrendous Italian sci-fi schlockfest

[8/10 · 10 July 2008]

Professor Carr (stolid Jacques Herlin) and his assistant Lois (the luscious Malisa Longo) are kidnapped by an army of evil robots. It's up to stalwart Captain John Boyd (the hopelessly wooden Antonio Sabato) and his intrepid crew of space rangers to save them. Totally all-thumbs director Alfonso Brescia allows the pace to plod along at a sluggish pace and stages the action scenes with an alarming lack of skill and finesse. The tacky (far from) special effects, Silvio Fraschetti's cruddy, grainy cinematography, the rusty tin-eared dialogue (choice line: "So, you have a plan; perhaps you're planning on murdering everybody"), Marcello Giombini's goofy synthesizer score, the uniformly terrible acting from a dreadful cast, the bland, talky cookie cutter script, and the lousy dubbing all add immensely to the overall deliciously cheesy fun. Sabato makes for a singularly colorless and underwhelming lead. Giacomo Rossi-Stuart as the stoic Roger, Aldo Canti as the bald, benign Kuba the Alien, and Dino Scandiuzzi as the eager young Jack are all likewise pretty bad. At least the cute Yanti Somer as the gutsy Julie and the ravishing Longo as the treacherous Lois supply some tasty eye candy. Campy highlights include a couple of sub-"2001" spacewalk scenes, two uproariously pathetic "Star Wars"-inspired laser swordfight sequences, and the spectacularly shoddy protracted spacefighter battle sequence which serves as the film's less-than-thrilling climax. Moreover, the evil robot army is quite funny: they're a bunch of guys wearing silver lame outfits and sporting retro 60's British invasion band moptop wigs. An amusingly awful gut-buster.