Very well executed

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Some people might wonder why Italian filmmakers, who have countless times in the past imitated popular American films and film genres, didn't cash in that many times after "Star Wars" was released. The obvious answer is that it takes considerable funds to make a space saga, funds that Italians didn't have in great numbers. But a few Italian filmmakers did try to cash in on "Star Wars" despite limited budgets, this being one of them. In fairness to the filmmakers behind "War Of The Robots", unlike other Italian space sagas, this one does its own thing for the most part and has very little material that one could say was imitating things from "Star Wars". But apart from that, it's hard to think of anything positive to say about this movie. The special effects and sets, while occasionally amusing, are for the most part really shoddy and pathetic. The characters are really thinly written - not one character stands out enough to make you remember him or her long after the movie is over. The story is really boring, really lacking regular action sequences. And the little action there is comes across as really boring, even the climatic space battle. There are occasional unintentional chuckles, but not enough to make it worthwhile to slog through this otherwise dismal enterprise.

Had "War of the Robots" appeared several years earlier, it might have worked a bit better. That's because the quality of the special effects would have looked great about 1965--but after films like "2001" and especially "Star Wars", this Italian film just looks crappy. At no point in the film are you able to believe that they are in outer space--suspension of disbelief with these effects just isn't possible.If you set aside the terrible sets and effects, you are left with a story that has a good story hidden underneath all the stupid histrionics (more about that in a minute). A race of aliens called the Anthor have become sterile. So, to preserve their species, they steal bodies of other races. To make things worse, the Anthor are real jerks--with that whole 'let's take over the galaxy' mentality. So, it's up to the intrepid humans to fight in space to save our species after Professor Carr and Lois are captured--and the aliens inside these two bodies are now leading the assault on the humans! This isn't a bad idea for a story--but later, and here's where it gets really dumb, the alien inside Lois STILL has the hots for her old human boyfriend and ultimately throws aside all her lust for power and galactic domination because of this lust!! Talk about dopey!! The film is not 100% awful--hence my score of 3. The 3 certainly would not indicate it's a thoroughly bad film--but it certainly won't be mistaken for a good one! The film looks cheap in most respects and isn't quite bad enough to make for must-see viewing by bad movie buffs.

The potential for something very entertaining here is unmistakable. War of the Robots is a clear Italian rip-off of Star Wars. And it does amuse me to think of the people who unwittingly must have pitched up in cinemas in the 70's to see this on the back of that massive blockbuster. I'm not too sure if they would have been very impressed to be perfectly honest.The robots of the title are a group of hilariously silver suited androids that sport haircuts similar to Brian Jones from The Rolling Stones circa 1968. The Brian Joneses are the villains and they appear throughout the movie in laser gun battles and light-sabre fights. They are the best thing about War of the Robots. Because overall, this is an overlong yawn-fest, with way too little going on to excuse it's running time. As camp entertainment it's OK but there simply isn't enough decent quality cheese to make up for the tedium.Watch it for the Brian Joneses and then turn it off.

"Representatives of an alien civilization on the brink of extinction arrive on Earth and kidnap two top research geneticists in the hopes they can find them a cure to their problem. Looking to stop a potential alien invasion and rescue the scientists, a group of soldiers is sent on a mission that could decide the fate of two civilizations," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.Badly dubbed, from Italian to English, "War of the Robots" is about as complete a waste of resources as you can imagine. It stars handsome Antonio Sabato - if you want to see soap star Antonio Sabato Jr.'s father in an extremely cheap "Star Wars"-ripped movie. He juggles beautiful Malisa Longo and Bowie-coiffed Yanti Somer. The film's sound effects much have been recorded inside somebody's intestines.* La guerra dei robot (1978) Alfonso Brescia ~ Antonio Sabato, Yanti Somer, Malisa Longo