Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The movie is surprisingly subdued in its pacing, its characterizations, and its go-for-broke sensibilities.

It is post-World War III. War is outlawed. In its place, are matches between large robots called Robot Jox. These matches take place between two large superpowers over disputed territories. The main character Achilles is a pilot in one of the large Robots. The plot revolves around him and a match for the state of Alaska.Although I would consider myself a bigger than average Stuart Gordon fan, this was a film I never got to see until now (2015). And what a strange addition to his career. The robot fights, though perhaps "retro" or dated, are pretty great, and indeed the highlight of the film. (Why they start off just punching when we later see them fighting in space is unclear.) The acting is pretty cheesy, especially the actor who plays Tex. I would love to have seen more of the robot fights and less of the human interaction, which seemed forced. None of the people are particularly likable. How the female lead went on to be as big as she is after this is unclear.The film began shooting in Rome in 1986, inspired by the Transformers and Macross, as well as "The Right Stuff" (which Gordon used for visual cues). The plot mixed in aspects of the "Iliad" and the story of Achilles, and the cast included Robert Sampson ("Re-Animator"), Hilary Mason ("Dolls"). This was a mix of classic Gordon elements and something all too futuristic. For the fans of this (or Gordon's career in general), Shout! Factory has packed their new Blu-ray so full they did not even have room to write on the case what it contained. It says "two audio commentaries" and "new and archival interviews", which does not really sum up just how much is on here... you can hear some incredible stories from Gordon, Band, Koslo and others about the Italian crew, the budget issues, and the limits of pre-digital technology. Although the movie itself is not my favorite, the disc is a must-own for any fan.Perhaps most interesting is the story about the bank that financed all the failing companies (including Empire and Cannon). The financial difficulties of Empire, Wizard and more or less everything Charlie Band touches are legendary. But who knew the problems were tied in with European finance and a handful of other seemingly-unrelated movie companies?Pick up this disc from Scream! Factory, watch the heck out of it, and then watch "Pacific Rim". Gordon thinks the way the robots are controlled has been borrowed by others, including "Pacific Rim", and when seen side by side it is hard to argue with him. Although largely forgotten, "Robot Jox" is more relevant than ever and it is time to give it the place in science fiction history it deserves.

50 years after a nuclear war, the superpowers handle disputes in a different way. Giant robots fight one-on-one battles in official matches, each piloted by a man inside, known as robot jockeys. The contest for possession of Alaska will be fought by two of the best. Achilles for the USA, Opposing him is a Alexander, a ruthless Russian adversary who has killed his previous nine American opponents. With a traitor feeding the Russians secret weapons information and new, genetically- engineered jox looking to take his place, Achilles faces obstacles at every turn in the hardest battle of his life.....Like Arena, and Crash and Burn, the movie is cheaply made, badly acted, and choc full of bad effects. But its like a really bad accident, you cannot keep your eyes off the screen.The film is set in four locations, Achilles Room, the local bar, the holding wing for the robot, and the fighting arena. It ventures off to space once where the Russian can fire a rocket, and that's it.Its fun when the robots fight, as the actors don't really say anything, but other than that, its pretty pants. Almost like a really poor relation to Rocky IV, in its layout, its novelty soon wears off after a while, leaving you with a film that has nothing new to offer you.But it is the best film ever featuring a traitor in a Stetson jumping from a height and still screaming long after he landed and died....

R O B O T J O X.Burn the master.Grotesquely horrible.No ending; no closure.Completely and utterly the worst movie ever made.Replaces "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" as the worst movie of all time.I hate this utterly unacted, unedited, unscripted, undirected, unproduced mess of a thing called "Robot Jox" - and I just found out - THEY MADE A SECOND ONE!?!? I apologize to Adma Sandler (Zohar the Beauticin) and Eddie Murphy (Pluto Nash) for hating their movies. This mess of a thing makes those movies only bad - not terrible horrible and grotesque like this thing. This is the only movie for which I have ever said this - REMOVE IT FROM NETFLIX - NOW!!! 10,000 out of 10 people found this comment helpful.

Robot Jox tries hard, but is fundamentally a series of fight scenes strung together -- robot against robot, man against man, man against woman. The premise had potential, but it seems the script wasn't really given the couple of more drafts it needed. Still, it was fairly good, for a science fiction action movie. Part of it was because the script was by Joe Haldeman. For those who aren't familiar with the name, Haldeman wrote the award-winning science fiction novel "The Forever War." It's considered one of the very best powered battle armor novels, right up there with Robert Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" and John Steakley's "Armor." And this movie is really more like a giant powered battle armor movie, rather than giant robots. It's closer to what fans would have wanted instead of the travesty that was Paul Verhoeven's "Starship Troopers," which bore only a passing resemblance to the novel it was based on.Despite some assumptions, this really isn't based on Homer's "Iliad." A couple of names are all they had in common. Achilles having his robot's foot blown off had no parallel in the Iliad, which didn't include Achilles' death. Nor was the ancient Achilles a noble warrior. He was the mightiest, but also vengeful and petty. Even the robot jock killed off in the first scene doesn't fit. He was named Hercules, while the Greek Iliad would have had Herakles.The effects were fairly good for the time and the budget. True, it wasn't comparable to "Terminator 2" a year later, but that movie cost ten times as much. The stop motion was almost as good as the robotic walkers in "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi." Better, in fact, than a lot of Ray Harryhausen animation, which is highly regarded, but quite dated.Don't bring high expectations into this and you probably won't be disappointed. It's better than a lot of other low-budget flicks and even some big-budget blockbuster wannabes that have better effects but far worse scripts.