Robot Jox -
To paraphrase
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "robots fighting robots is no basis for a system of government." Those in control of the post-apocalyptic Earth in
Robot Jox would beg to differ because that very thing determines who controls what few habitable pieces of land remain. A movie that's essentially the Cold War in a nutshell, its centerpiece is a showdown between American jock/jox/what have you Achilles, who's back for "one last job," and Russian Alexander, who's not much of a rule follower. Even though it's over 30 years old, the robot fight scenes hold up pretty well. While their uses of forced perspective, green screen, etc. are obvious, they're professionally filmed, each attack has a visceral impact, I could tell who was fighting who - something that isn't always clear in modern movies like this one - and best of all, they're fun to watch. Believe it or not, and don't fret, but the movie is not just about robot fights: there are also Cold War and sci-fi military-inspired plotlines involving espionage and eugenics that held my interest and defied my expectations and the production design, while minimal and thrifty, still manages to both honor and parody the design found in dystopian sci-fi from its era. Just because a feature film is short does not mean it's lean in content, but this one is decidedly lean. When it ended, I had a somewhat "that's all?" reaction. The character development is partly to blame: while the movie serves Achilles well enough, it's pretty scant for everyone else. It is thus no masterpiece, but if you're wondering if it's a good addition to Stuart Gordon's filmography, a worthy member of the robot fighting genre, worth the wait for it to appear on streaming services and, well...fun, the answer is "yes" to all four.