Cast: Reb Brown, Catherine Hickland, Romano Puppo, Alex McBride
Quick, which Arnold Schwarzenegger film was a world wide hit in 1987? Right, Predator. Guess which film hack Bruno Mattei ripped off almost immediately?
Now, Robowar is no ordinary rip off. It's rather a word for word, scene for scene remake. It's about a small army of mercenaries who calls themselves B.A.M. (Bad Ass Motherfuckers, of course) who are hired for an expedition that shall release American prisoners in Vietnam. But they don't know the real purpose of the mission. You see, the goverment has experimented with a new type of superweapon, a robosoldier made out of human body parts (Paul Verhoeven haven't commented yet) and now this roboguy has gone bananas.
Robowar almost plays like a sequel to one of Mattei's earlier hits, Strike Commando also starring Reb Brown, with touches of horror and science fiction stuffed in. Reb Brown is always in good spirit in these films, he just can't stop smiling, while stonefaced Romano Puppo (an incredible stiff actor and a sodomizer in Lucio Fulci's The Naples Connection) is his exact opposite. The femme beauty is contributed by Catherine Hickland (who doesn't get'em off) as a character with the appropriate name Virgin (she was also a virgin in a more physical sense in Fabrizio Laurenti's Ghost House 2/Witchery for those who care). The ending is a bit of a disappointment though. It looks like they've run short on money and just rushed through it. Which they probably have too. Robowar is nontheless a real romp, with a ridiculously high body count and hillarious special effects. It's also disgustingly entertaining, the very definition of a turkey. Surprisingly enough it was a big flop at the box-office in Italy. Some audiences just don't have any humour.
© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.