Movie Review: War of the Robots

War of the Robots (La guerra dei robot) a.k.a Reactor a.k.a Robots a.k.a Stratostars Koala Cinematografica, Nais Film, Italy, 1978.

This movie is published as a part of Chilling Classics 50 movie pack box by Mill Creek Entertainment. 

Security satellite in sector 8 has stopped functioning. Romantic moment between Captain John Boyd (Antonio Sabato) and Lois (Malisa Longo) is interrupted. Professor Carr (Jacques Herlin), who is in love with Lois, is conducting an important experiment. He is trying to create life. Group of guys in gold suits abduct the Professor and Lois. The laboratory has atomic reactor that will explode in 8 days so Commander King (Roger Browne) thinks it is better to find the Professor before it happens. 

Captain John Boyd

Lois and Professor Carr

Golden page boys

So it is time to jump in the spaceship Trissi. We have a "Star Trek"-style crew with men, women and Uhura-wannabe. Short haired member of John's crew Julie (Yanti Somer) is also in love with Kirk, I mean John. Everyone knows it except John and the situation provokes some smirks from the other crew members.

Commander King

Julie

Spaceship Trissi

When you look at the crew's and gold suit guys' hairstyles it seems that page boy hair will be popular in the future. 

Crew member (Patricia Gori), Sonia (Ines Pellegrini),  crew member (Nicole Stoliaroff)

Herb, Jack and Paul

John goes to investigate the disabled satellite to get data about the alien spaceship. We see a space walk scene taken from another film of Alfonso Brescia. The ship is damaged in space combat and has to make an emergency landing on asteroid Azar. 

Fun trivia: the spaceship is named Trissi because the jumpsuits the crew are using are manufactured by Trissi Sport company, so the suits have Trissi logos on their sleeves. 

Roger and Julie in Trissi suits

John, Roger (Giacomo Rossi Stuart), Paul (Venantino Venantini), Sonia (Ines Pellegrini) and Julie go to explore the asteroid. Texas cowboy Herb (West Buchanan) stays in the ship. Some aliens with weird eyes attack them. Their leader Kuba (Aldo Canti) thinks that they are evil Anthorians who are enslaving them. Only Kuba has normal eyes. Anthorians are the same gold suit guys who kidnapped the Professor. The heroes escape when the real Anthorians arrive and stun the Azorians with some kind of sonic gun system that is linked to their bracelets. The heroes try to save the slaves and huge phaser gun fight follows. 

Man from Azor

Kuba

The Azorians have weird eyes because it protects them from radiation. Kuba has been forced to undergo an eye surgery so that he could see in planet Anthor. The Anthorians can prolong their lives but need fresh organs, so they are kidnapping Azorians. Kuba will become blind if he stays on Azor so he comes along to help the heroes. 

When the heroes arrive to planet Anthor, something is very wrong. The Professor is collaborating with the Anthorians. The phasers are disabled and the Anthorians have light sabres. Epic sword fight begins and Kuba does double jump kicks. The Professor has taken the rest of the crew as hostages. The planet is ruled by old geezers who look like Emperor Palpatine. Lois is made the Empress of Anthor. First Lois orders the crew members to be used as Professor's guinea pigs. 

Anthorians have invented light sabres!

Typical Anthorian

Lois offers herself to the Professor in exchange for Trissi crew's freedom. The Professor gets jealous and sounds the alarm so the crew has to fight their way out. Lois stuns the professor and Kuba grabs a data chip from the laboratory. As a surprise twist one of the gold suit guys is spliced with a light sabre. They are revealed to be androids! I was beginning to wonder why the title was "War of the Robots" and not "War of the Space Page Boys." Two of the female crew members (Nicole Stoliaroff and Patrizia Gori) die along the way. No time to feel sorry for them.

The crew battles their way out

High-tech robot!

Now it only the question of stopping the nuclear meltdown. Ship's doctor Paul (Venantino Venantini) is keeping him at sickbay. The sneaky Professor lures Paul to kill himself basically the scene goes like this:
The Professor: "Here's a box, press the button!"
Paul: "Okay!"
Paul: "Aargh!" (dies)
The Professor "Hehehe!"

However someone then murders the Professor! Lois has betrayed the crew again and brought some androids aboard! After a fight Lois is stunned and then left unguarded. When she wakes up, she is picked up by Anthorian spaceship. The heroes use codes from Kuba's data chip to stop the nuclear meltdown. Jack (Dino Scandiuzzi), Roger and John take space fighters to defend Trissi. Kuba stays in the ship with rest of the crew to watch the show from the monitors. Trissi's computer is broken so Kuba uses manual control for cannons. The three fighters manage to destroy several waves of incoming enemy fighters. Also Kuba manages to score some hits. Jack and Roger die and the situation looks dire. Julie grabs a space fighter and saves John. Jealous Lois jumps in a space fighter and threatens to destroy Julie. John destroys her space fighter, good riddance! As the enemy ship has seemingly unlimited arsenal of space fighters, Herb and Kuba decide to use torpedoes that contain hundreds of energy grenades that all explode simultaneously. The Anthorian ships are destroyed and the Universe is saved!
John: When I think all that happened, it makes life fantastic!
Also Julie realizes that near death experience gives a nice kick.

John's space fighter

Enemy fleet

The Universe is saved, yay!

This is Italian "Star Trek"-clone with a dash of "Star Wars", campy and cheap. "War of the Robots" is some kind of sequel to "Cosmos: War of the Planets" (1977) that can be found in Mill Creek's Sci-Fi Classics 50 Movie Pack. Many of the space scenes were taken from the prequel. There is some unintentional hilarity as almost everyone is wearing a wig. The music is weird and cheesy but kind of cool. I don't know if it is due the dubbing or what but the phasers lose their sound effects during the final scenes. The foot step sound effects were also funny. The minimal plot is padded with overlong battle scenes. The final battle is hilariously overlong and becomes an endurance test for the audience. This stumbles its way to the "So bad it is good" area.

Palombi Rocchetti must have made a fortune with this film

Rating: So bad it is good

Starring: Antonio Sabato, Yanti Somer, Malisa Longo (as Melissa Long), Patrizia Gori (as Patricia Gore), Giacomo Rossi Stuart (as James R. Stuart), Roberto Bianchetti (as Robert Barnes), Aldo Canti (as Nick Jordan), Enrico Gozzo (as Henry Goddard), Licinia Lentini (as Lilian Lacy), Massimo Righi (as Max Wright), Dino Scandiuzzi (as Dean Cantor), Nicole Stoliaroff (as Nicole Stocks), Ian Pulley, Venantino Venantini (as Vernon Vernons), Jacques Herlin (as Jacques Herlein), Ines Pellegrini (as Micky Pilgrim), West Buchanan (as Frank Siedlitz), Roger Browne, Fabio Roscioli, Iren Szeremi, Ivan Tirapani, Anna Toffoli 

Director: Alfonso Brescia (as Al Bradly)