The War of the Robots (1978)

Let's be realistic.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Admittedly there are far more (laughable) issues than simply bad dubbing and illogical dialogue, but who knows what was lost when the film was altered for American audiences? The rest is pretty obvious: poor special effects (more like something out of the fifties!); cheap costumes and sets; wooden acting; etc. All of the criticisms listed in these reviews are true! So are the pluses: viewed in the right light, the film is rather humorous. Unfortunately for this reviewer, that was not enough to convince me to watch more than 3/4s of the movie (which was about 4/4s too long!). Fine as background noise, the occasional chuckle (along with unbelieving head shake) and the frequent puzzled look. I do get how fun it could be to watch this with a group of inebriated friends while throwing popcorn at the screen. Not worth watching alone. You COULD watch it with your cat.

I didn't so much as like this movie as was captivated by one of the minor characters. As far as the movie goes, it had moments of entertainment between very poorly edited/directed scenes that almost put me to sleep. It obviously, and as others have stated, tried to exploit other successful SciFi movies. The 'robots' were almost funny but I guess when you have no money, you costume a bunch of starving extras and call them robots. I loved the green, form-fitting, crew jumpsuit uniforms on the women.One of the minor female characters captivated me though. She was the one that was shot in the back while escaping. Unfortunately,IMDb doesn't have any pictures of the cast so I can't figure out who played the part, since she is among the characters listed as "Trissi crew". Between a beautiful face and her tragic end, I can't help coming back to it as being one of the few properly directed scenes in the whole movie. We see little of her until the battle in the big room. Everyone is making their getaway but she hangs back to protect the others. Alas, her nobility is repaid by being left behind. As she breaks for her escape, she is shot in the back and killed by a robot. Her body rolls down the steps and rests face up with "dead eyes" staring up at the camera in a haunting shot. I can't understand how someone can direct such a good sequence but make the rest of the movie such a yawner! Anyway I would love to know more about the actress that played the tragic and noble "Trissi crew".

This is one of the most difficult movies I have labored to get through. I'm not trying to be witty when I say that War of the Robots makes Starcrash look like Revenge of the Sith. The effects are so poorly done that it's a wonder why this was even made. Much to my surprise, this is actually the fourth of five, yes five, of these sci-fi films made with basically the same cast. A group of android aliens kidnap a scientist and his assistant Lois in order to save their race. The androids are a group of thirty year old men dressed in silver jump suits with blond bowl-cut wigs. Antonio Sabato plays Captain John Boyd who leads the mission to recover the Dr. and Lois, whom he is enamored with much to the chagrin of his fellow crew-member Julie. The Julie character is very disturbing due to the abnormally butch haircut given her. Picture a junior high boy with great boobs. Disturbing anyone? By the way, in the future bras are nonexistent.Everything about this film stinks! Characters change allegiances then change back without any explanations whatsoever. The dialogue is about as enthralling as listening to a tax seminar. Even the name of the ship, the Trissi, sucks. I was trying to think of why they used such an odd name for the ship until I saw the ending credits. Yep, Trissi Sport supplied the costumes! The dubbing is horrendous as is most notable in one character that has the worst Texan accent ever. The music soundtrack is absolutely putrid. I've heard songs preprogrammed on an old Casio better than this. The weapons consist of flashlight guns with no lasers. At one point in the film the sound of the gun disappears making the scenes even more absurd. The final duel in space is even worse. At a mind-numbing one hour and thirty nine minutes I was reduced to a shell of my former self. This is truly the gutter of science fiction films. Avoid at all costs!

"Representatives of an alien civilization on the brink of extinction arrive on Earth and kidnap two top research geneticists in the hopes they can find them a cure to their problem. Looking to stop a potential alien invasion and rescue the scientists, a group of soldiers is sent on a mission that could decide the fate of two civilizations," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.Badly dubbed, from Italian to English, "War of the Robots" is about as complete a waste of resources as you can imagine. It stars handsome Antonio Sabato - if you want to see soap star Antonio Sabato Jr.'s father in an extremely cheap "Star Wars"-ripped movie. He juggles beautiful Malisa Longo and Bowie-coiffed Yanti Somer. The film's sound effects much have been recorded inside somebody's intestines.* La guerra dei robot (1978) Alfonso Brescia ~ Antonio Sabato, Yanti Somer, Malisa Longo