I can forgive a lot of things. An actual real-life movie starring Reb Brown as a Diet Mountain Lion version of Arnold Schwarzenegger, I can forgive. An Expendables-like group dropped in the jungle wearing mid-riff cuttoffs with a medical doctor who looks like an intellectual college, English professor who smells like moldy books, I can forgive. Work out music repeating the same four chords over and over again for ten minutes, I can forgive (I do feel Jane Fonda’s Vietnam Workout is a missing VHS from the 80s). However, something I will never forgive is an action/sci-fi movie that introduces their mysterious killer robot by having them out from behind a tree (This is one thing the Lorex doesn’t have to fight for)! Having said all that, RoboWar is the better movie you should watch instead of its predecessor it (clearly) ripped off, Predator. Although ripoff is a term you use when another movie slightly borrows. RoboWar flat-out replaces the predator with a roboman and frankly, I’m all in for it! Why? This film doesn’t even pretend to take itself too seriously and is proud to be on the same VHS shelf as the other film, but doesn’t need a Hollywood star to sell it (although it would not have hurt)! You rent a movie called RoboWar and you get what you get and you don’t get upset!
However, before we go into how amazing this movie is (I mean, how do you not smile when Quang Rambos the machine gun, screaming like a banshee in heat), let us all give thanks for the gift of Reb (Chet Muslesteaks) Brown in our lives. Not only is Brown the master of such cosmic absurdities as Space Mutiny and one of the first actors to be Marvel’s Captain America, but he also starred in a slew of commandoes-on-the-loose 80s bullet-sploitations like Mercenary Fighters, Death of a Soldier, and Stike Commando. With giving medals for bravery and heroism (truthfully, thank you to anyone who served), they should give the Reb (Studs McBullethead) Brown Medal of Awesomeness for anyone who sits through a film festival of this man’s finest work (take a sip, it’s pure vintage). To know him is to truly appreciate and love the man, for more on Reb (Mike Fistnuckles) Brown, please visit his website here (and purchase some great autographed stuff)!
For the plot of the movie, see the Predator Wikipedia page here (just subtract alien and substitute Robot/man/dead soldier)… no seriously, it’s the same damn thing, just with Reb (Chuck Makeme) Brown, some bad pixelated left-over footage from Westworld, and the worlds most annoying talking robot dude… I mean it. Just remember the plot of Predator and save yourself a lot of time.
Rumbling in the jungle at an elephant-sized 92 minutes, and directed by Italian quickie-clicky Bruno Mattei (who lensed classics like Hell of the Living Dead and Women’s Prison Massacre), the actor who had to endure the robot suit fainted a few times in the jungle (I guess he it was hard to use the location computer to find a cup of aqua). You won’t have to battle much to find this little fighter on streamers like Tubi, but try to get ahold of the BD from Severin Video with a load of special features! So Operation: Dumb-O-Drop into the forest of unbelievable cinematic thievery, heat (seek) up some lunchmeat from an MRE pack, and let Reb (Alex Stickthuds) Brown rescue you from Robo-boredom-land!
