War of the Robots (1978)

Ah at last we come to the last of what I've come to call the Italian Sci-Fi Trilogy. The other two movies in this trilogy are of course Cosmos: War of the Planets, and Star Odyssey. Now when I say that they are trilogy, I don't mean the stories have anything to do with each other. They don't. But the movies use a lot of the same effects, and costumes so they all look the same. War of the Robots is the middle movie of the trilogy coming out in 1978.


Synopsis: When a Professor and his assistant, who are working on special reactor on earth, are kidnapped by Aliens, a ship is sent out to rescue them and return to earth before the reactor they built explodes.

God bless this movie. It is the typical middle child. It's not nearly as aged and wise as Cosmos: War of the Planets, and not nearly as out there, and wacky as Star Odyssey, but it does try to hold it's own. It's really not clear what movie this film is trying to rip off. Sometimes it seems that is ripping off 2001, at other times it seems to trying to rip off Star Wars. It goes from watching a guy repair a circuit in space for fifteen minutes, to super fast paced gun battles at almost exactly the half way point. I have my own theory about this. I think that while they were shooting this movie Star Wars came out and hit big, and thus they adjusted this movie to this new style of action adventure Sci-Fi about half way through. Lightsabers even show up near the end of this movie.

This movie actually holds together the best of the three movies that make up this trilogy of sorts. The story doesn't get off track too much, characters actually take actions that make sense and there is a reason our heroes go on a daring rescue in deep space other then "just cause." It's sad this movie gets lost among the other two. I mean this is the only one of the three movies that doesn't have a page on Wikipedia. You put in War of Robots there and you get a Doctor Who novel. From a story stand point this is the probably the strongest of the three, even though I still have a soft spot for the super silliness that is Stay Odyssey.

War of the Robots gets a 4 out 5 on the Cheese-O-Meter.

Until next time, see you on the front line.

-Matt

Hands of Steel (1986)

This movie goes by a lot names: Vendetta dal futuro, Atomic Cyborg, Arms of Steel, and Return of the Terminator, but the version we are looking at today is called Hands of Steel. 

Synopsis: In not to distant future (1997) an assassin fails to kill a top political leader and then goes rogue. He quickly finds himself running from both the law and the men who sent him to kill. But this killer is more then meets the eye and the men who created him will stop and nothing to see him destroyed.

What's kinda funny about this movie is that they try to hide the fact that the guy is a robot through most of the movie, problem is that with  titles like "Atomic Cyborg" and "Return of the Terminator", the titles doesn't make the same effort. Even "Hands of Steel" is telling, but just not as bad. And I mean look at the poster...it's like saying "Hi! I'm a robot." 

You know what else is cool about this movie? It's a "good guy"Terminator story that was made in 1986, 5 years before 1991's Terminator 2 did it. Course it would be hard to make this guy bad because his name is Paco. I mean Paco? Really? And that's even with English dub. You'd think they'd give him a more bad ass name like "Brick Steel." or "Todd", but nope....Paco. 

This movie s good example of cheese in the 1980's. Like many other Italian films for the time it's just a rip off of another movie and I'm sure you all guessed which movie that is....that's right: Short Circuit. Nah, I kid. It's Terminator. I do it give it credit for bringing something new to the table with the killing machine turned good though. 

Hands of Steel gets a 4 out of 5 on the Cheese-O-Meter.

Until next time, see you on the front line. 

-Matt 

The Day the Sky Exploded (1961)

It's always kinda funny to look at pre-moon landing space race movies. Knowing what has happened, it's so odd to see what people thought might happen in the future. The Day The Sky Exploded is kinda like that, with a single man in an atomic powered rocket making the journey to the moon, instead of the three men in a chemical powered rocket that we know made the journey.

Synopsis: When an manned atomic rocket to the moon malfunctions, the pilot ejects in the capsule sending the atomic motor off into space where it explodes in the asteroid belt sending a life ending meteor hurtling towards earth.

There is some debate on which country lays claim to this movie. The Italians claim it as their first Sci-Fi movie. The Germans, on the other hand, also claim this movie as their own. The truth is probably some where in between, as the film has a lot of both German and Italian actors in it. I'd lean more toward the Italians having the claim though since the original language it was filmed in was Italian.

If this is an Italian film then it's a lot better then their later attempts at Sci-Fi in the 70's and 80's. It's really pretty decent and if it had been made in America it might have been up there with the other great Sci-Fi films of that era. Sadly it wasn't and thus was pushed to the back burner of films. Thing is this movie is actually too good. It is missing the cheesiness and goofiness needed to make a really great B-Movie. After all that's the fun of these kinds of film. That hurts it as a movie to laugh at it's absurdities, but that's also a good thing as it can be looked at as a far more serious film.

The Day the Sky Exploded gets a 4 out of 5 on the Cheese-O-Meter.

Until next time, see you on the front line.

-Matt

Cosmos: War of the Planets (1977)

From the makers of Star Odyssey comes  Cosmos: War of the Planets. Actually it should be said from the makers of Cosmos comes Star Odyssey, because this is actually the first of the Italian space trilogy that all shared sets, costumes, and props. This movie is of course a rip off of a big Hollywood movie, and that movie isn't Star Wars, but 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Synopsis: When a exploration craft is attacked by Alien space craft while investigating a strange planet, they have to crash land. On the surface of the planet they find a group of Aliens that have been enslaved by a evil super computer, and now they are trapped on the planet by it as well. 

The plot of this movie isn't actually that bad. The special effects are pretty good as well. This movie does lack the silly charm of Star Odyssey, and tries to tell a more serious and less swashbuckling tale then that movie does. I actually think that makes this movie not as good. It will never be able to compete with those big name movies, so all it has is it's silly charm and with a lot less of that in this film it suffers a little.

Cosmos: War of Planets gets a 3 out of 5 on the Cheese-O-Meter.

Until next time, see you on the front line.

-Matt

Star Odyssey (1979)

Star Odyssey (1979)

We are going with a different format today and might be what I use from now on out if it works well. Also I'll be using this format as a test bed for a book about B-Movies that I have started working on. So bare with me here.

Today with look at one of the movies that made me what to do this blog in the first place (along with Kung Fu from Beyond the Grave) It is the 1979 Italian Star Wars rip off, Star Odyssey!

Synopsis: When Earth is sold off to the highest bidder in a space auction to an evil space lord intent on enslaving mankind, Professor Mauri must put together a crack team that includes A psychic, a robot boxer, two con-men, and a couple of always depressed robots, in order to figure out a way to save the whole world.

This movie is the last of a trilogy of Italian Sci-Fi flicks that use a lot of the same sets and costumes. The other two are Cosmos: War of the Planets, and War of the Robots. Which I'm sure we will also review here at some point in the future.

This flick is bad, but it is bad in that really great way that makes you love this movie. It's silly and you have to keep watching to see what comes next and if they can top it, and they always does. When we get the way over the top "Hollywood" (often times just called Holly) and all his crazy posing and 1930's hero act, we then see man bare knuckle boxing a robot to up the stakes over that. Then, just when you think that they couldn't do any better, we get a couple of suicidal robots who can never remember why they were trying to end it all.

Star Odyssey is the movie that keeps on giving. If you only track down one movie that you see me review on this site, let it be this one.

I'm giving this a 5 out 5 on the Chess-o-meter.

Until next time, see you on the front line.

-Matt