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ROBOT JOX
Rating: 
USA. 1990.
Director/Story – Stuart Gordon, Screenplay – Joe Haldeman, Producer – Albert Band, Photography – Mac Ahlberg, Music – Frederic Talgorn, Visual Effects – David Allen, Model Effects Supervisor – Dennis Gordon, Makeup – Magical Media Industries (Supervisors – John Buechler & John Foster), Production Design – Giovanni Natalucci. Production Company – Empire.
Cast:
Gary Graham (Charles ‘Achilles’ Peck), Anne-Marie Johnson (Athena), Paul Koslo (Alexander), Michael Alldredge (Tex Conway), Danny Kamekona (Dr Matsumoto), Hilary Mason (Professor Laplace), Robert Sampson (Commissioner Jameson)
Plot: It is 50 years after the holocaust. The Earth has been split into two super-powers – the Russian Alliance and the Western Market. War has been outlawed and instead the two super-powers settle conflicts by having chosen warriors battle in giant-sized robots that mimic the movements of their pilot or jockey. Western Market fighter Achilles takes on the deadly Alliance fighter Alexander but during the match, Achilles’s robot topples over onto the stands, killing 300 spectators. The outcome of the battle is deemed inconclusive and a rematch announced. However, Achilles announces he has fulfilled his contract, which was only for ten matches, and that he does not want to fight anymore. Achilles then must deal with his replacement, the ‘tubie’ Athena, one of a breed of new genetically engineered jocks, who is eager to take his place. There is also a traitor who is leaking secrets of the Market weapons to the other side. Through this, Achilles is reluctantly drawn back to enter the fight again.
Director Stuart Gordon had a cult hit with the hilarious splatter comedy Re-Animator (1985). Alas, Gordon’s films since then, which include various other splatter films such as From Beyond (1986), Dolls (1987), The Pit and the Pendulum (1991), Castle Freak (1995), and Dagon (2001) and science-fiction films like Fortress (1993) and Space Truckers (1996), have generally hit a one-note that reveals that black comedy splatter and moron action are about the only thing in Gordon’s arsenal. Robot Jox is one of the usually lambasted films among Stuart Gordon’s oeuvre. Contrarily, one found it to be unexpectedly good – indeed is, next to Re-Animator, probably Gordon’s best film at least up until the extraordinary non-genre David Mamet adaptation Edmond (2005).
Stuart Gordon originally shot Robot Jox in 1986 under the title Robot Jox. At the time he made it, Gordon was attempting to exploit the mid-1980s craze for Transformer toys, inspired by tv’s Transformers (1984-7). However, the film was caught up by the financial collapse of Albert and Charles Band’s Empire Studios in the late 1980s. By the time the film was eventually released directly to video, the Transformer craze was over.
Characteristically, Gordon appears to have wanted to make a comic-book out of the film. Due to the fortuitous recruitment on script of Joe Haldeman, the hard science-fiction author known for the acclaimed and Award-winning likes of The Forever War (1975), Mindbridge (1976), All My Sins Remembered (1977) and the Worlds series, Robot Jox emerges as considerably better than it appears to have been originally construed. Haldeman is interested in creating a credible social milieu for the Transformers to take place in. The set-up of the film owes much to Peter Watkins’ The Peace Game (1969), of which Haldeman may or may not have been aware. Haldeman sketches the story with interestingly economical strokes and is particularly good when it comes to characterization. The scenes between Achilles and Athena where she tries to discern the meaning of luck, or even where the traitor is revealed, are well written. All play competently, although Paul Koslo’s Russian accent is unconvincing. The ending, which comes somewhat abruptly on a handshake and agreement of international cooperation between the East and West, is vaguely unsatisfying – not to mention, by the time that Robot Jox eventually came out, a redundant one.
The special effects work by David Allen, usually responsible for the cheap effects on sundry films for the Bands, is stunning. These quite belie the budget on which the film was made. Particularly amazing is the climactic battle. The full size of the fighting machines is conveyed and it is fantastic to watch them in battle – buzzsaw blade chains that cut arms off, chainsaws emerging from the belly of the machines, Alexander’s transformer scuttling along on six claws like a crab, and he toying with the downed Anne-Marie Johnson with the end of one giant fingertip.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1999-2012
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