Thursday, December 11, 2003

REVIEW: Robotrix

* * ¾ (out of four)

Seen 10 December 2003 at Allston Cinema #1 (Weekly Wednesday Ass-Kicking)

That's more like it. The last couple entries in this series have been pretty lackluster, but this Robocop-inspired kung-fu T&A-fest was fun. I'll readily admit, a good chunk of what makes it enjoyable is the same thing that make Swimming Pool enjoyable - there's plenty of bare flesh on display, along with enough going on that the audience can say they're watching it for more than just nudity.

Indeed, as B-movies go, Robotrix is downright competent. The story makes just enough sense to prevent a whole lot of "yeah, right"s, it's structured not to require a lot of special effects that would either blow the budget or look incredibly fake, and the action sequences pass muster. The places it falls short - clunky exposition, goofy subtitles, and a "high-tech" android research lab that appears to be running on leftover MSX or C64 computers from the 1980s (and, indeed, robots that look a lot less sophisticated once the human skin is off) - were at least "good camp", as far as I was concerned.

The movie's biggest problem is that the action storyline is on the grim and grisly side - the evil robot tortures a kidnap victim with a drill, and is said to rape and kill several women (though only a couple are shown on-screen) - but at the same time, there's a lot of goofy, slapsticky comedy. A murdered pimp has a cartoonish dent in his chest, for instance, and you have to wonder about the way grown men become drooling 12-year-olds around Amy Yip's naive robot-girl character. A western remake would probably tone one of the sides down for fear of appearing to be two similar movies sewn together.

Robotrix is unapolagetic exploitation - sex and violence with a bit of comedy in the mix. It's livelier than the average direct-to-video (at least in the US) effort, though, and in an audience like that at the WWAK, can be a fairly enjoyable couple hours.

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