bad/awesome flixxx review: Robot Jox (1990)

"He IS the best. It IS a big deal. That's why we're saving him. To fight for ALASKA! We CANNOT allow the Confederation to OCCUPY one square inch of American soil." - Commissioner Jamison

"Crash and burn." - everyone in the flick

"We are already dead. We are Robot Jox." - Alexander

I remembered seeing this late at night when I was younger on one of the "late night" movie lineups either on The Movie Channel with Joe Bob Briggs or maybe on USA Up All Night with Gilbert Godfried or Rhonda Shear. I didn't really remember anything about it, except for that it was cheesy as hell, and probably going to be super awesome and super bad upon rewatch. Well I was right. It was both. Produced by Charles Band of Full Moon Entertainment fame, this was sure to be a pleaser either way she fell. A bunch of unknowns star in ROBOT JOX!!!

This film begins in the future. A future so far "advanced" that there is no more war on the planet Earth. Two distinct massive "countries" came from all the conflicts and in the end, one represented the US superpower, and the "Confederation" was the country representing the Russian presence of the East. All major conflicts now are dealt with and settled by huge fights that the whole world watches with huge robots fighting for each country in hopes of winning the battle for their own side. Each country has a team and we our story starts out with one of the Confederation "robot jox" (Alexander) fighting and killing one of the last team members of the "USA" side. Even though the US dude yielded and Alexander was in the wrong, no one did shit about it. So this put Achilles (the last US guy) in a position where he would have to finally fight his tenth fight, to seal his contract, in a battle against Alexander. Achilles team consists of this redneck guy Tex, and this Hawaiian guy Dr. Matsumoto.

Achilles is the best fighter the US team ever had. No one else even made it close to their tenth fight. This was an important fight as well, because whoever won it would control Alaska which is deep in oil, trees, and tons of other natural resources. Alaska is up for grabs, you can't fuck this up, nahm sayn? So Achilles suits up, and they start battling it out. Somehow all the fighters have been getting killed, and the bad guys already know about all the "new" weapons that the US team is coming up with. That means somewhere there is leak. Someone is spying and telling the Confederation about their plans. Also there's a ton of test tube babies born and bread to fight that are making Achilles life difficult by trying to outdo him and basically making him feel like an old piece of shit.

Achilles fights Alexander but when Alexander blocks Achilles new weapon and then counters, it gives Achilles a concussion. As if that wasn't bad enough, when he finally wakes up and gets to his feet, he's blasted again and this time falls on a huge deck of bleachers and crushes like 300 people. So, they have a ruling to see who controls Alaska, and whoever the neutral party is in the world is like, "we don't give a fuck about the crushed people. AND we don't care that Achilles was trying to stop the weapon from killing them. We can't say who won. You have to fight again." RUTHLESS! But Achilles is like- BULLSHIT, and refuses to fight. Then a bunch of people say- It ain't over till its over jack. And they try to convince him to fight again. So he quits and people call him a pussy. But he's over it. Maybe its the fact that he just killed 300 people. OR maybe its the fact that chances are you'll NEVER survive this shit, and HE DID. Can't say I blame him.

OK, but the show must go on. Someone has to control Alaska, so they look to the test tube "tubies" to try to find a champion ready to face Alexander. There are two possible candidates. One is a wreckless loudmouth who gets his body broken in training. The other is this chick. The only female "jock" ever. Achilles kind of ends up falling for her, and when its announced that she'll face Alexander, he says fuck it, I'll fight. The tubies say he's just pulling shit to get more money, and they don't understand he wants to save the chick. Dr Matsumoto finds out who the spy is and its

**************SPOILER ALERT***********************

Tex the redneck... and he pulls a gun and kills the Doc. But the doc is smart enough to tape it on the weapons briefing that he's hidden until the fight. So the chick is super pissed cause she wants to fight so she goes and knocks Achilles out, suits up and hijacks the robot. The refs say she took the field so she has to fight. She's trying out the new weapons and they find out that Tex is a murderer. He says you'll never take me alive and jumps out of a super high elevator shaft and bites it. So then the chick (Athena) gets knocked out, & Achilles goes out to save her. He jumps in the robot and Alexander allows it because all he wants to do is kill Achilles. The refs disqualify Alexander for not stopping so Achilles has really won it for the team, but he says fuck it and they have a showdown. Finally they tear the robots up and start fighting on the field. In the end, Achilles convinces Alexander that they don't actually HAVE to die on the field. Then they bump fists. THE END. Should you see this? Yes, order it for like $1 on VHS on Amazon and get wild man! You NEED this cheese.

Saturday, January 7, 2012