Robot Jox Blu-ray Review

One man's mecha is another man's giant robot.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, July 6, 2015

Anime lovers have their pick of so-calledoutings, shows and standalone entries like Mobile Suit Gundam 00: the Movie - A Wakening of the Trailblazer Eureka Seven: Part One (and its more or less reboot Eureka Seven AO ), Gurren Lagann Vol. 1 Full Metal Panic!: Season 1 , and Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles . The fact that this is only a very abbreviated list perhaps indicates how popular this niche in Asian animation has been, something that makes its relative lack of prevalence in American productions all the more remarkable. About the closest thing that those on this side of the pond can claim as their home grownwould be franchises like Transformers , most especially with regard to, the mid-eighties animated effort whose popularity was reportedly at least partially responsible for sparking the live action, a film which received a rather limited theatrical release in 1990 after having been finished in 1987 but then finding itself shelved with the bankruptcy of its studio, the little remembered Empire Pictures.Fans of Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 1 may remember an episode entitled "A Taste of Armageddon," wherein the dauntlesscrew stumbled across two neighboring planets which had stopped shipping untold millions off to battle and had instead "mechanized" a long running war between them, turning the battle over to a computer which simulated attacks and then decreed how many citizens of any given culture needed to be killed as casualties. Another first season episode called "Arena" famously pitted Captain Kirk against a kind of hybrid lizard dinosaur creature named Gorn, with both combatants representing their respective species.borrows a couple of elements from both of these episodes, positing a future society which has in fact outlawed warfare, and appointed representative scapegoats (in a manner of speaking) who fight each other in lieu of their societies going to war.This "high tech" (a questionable term, given this film's lo-fi special effects) Gladiator combat premise first plays out as the credits come to a close with two nemeses named Hercules (Russell Case), representing Western civilization, and Alexander (Paul Koslo), a kind of nefarious Soviet-esque fighter (as with many science fiction properties, the film comes replete with its own vocabulary describing the various factions at play). The good guy doesn't end up coming out on top of this particular fray, and it's thought that some dastardly snooping into the heroes' various arsenals has had something to do with the villains taking the day.The second major showdown is between Alexander and Achilles (Gary Graham), who are battling for ultimate control of Alaska, and unfortunately this fight, too, goes sour for the good guy. This time some innocent bystanders are killed, when Achilles actually attempts to prevent some mayhem launched by the robotic hands of Alexander. The match is considered a draw, but that sets up things for the rest of the film, where Achilles initially withdraws after the horror of his last match, replaced by Athena (Anne-Marie Johnson), who may or may not be up to the challenge of defeating Alexander, a fighter who it's already been shown isn't above bending the rules a bit in order to ensure his victory.is actually perfectly acceptable on a baseline level as an admittedly fairly cheesy kids' entertainment, but the problem is Joe Haldeman's screenplay seems to want to inject more adult content as well, offering supposedly compelling interactions between various characters that actually tend to only slow things down. There's a certain predictability to this entire enterprise which also tends to weigh things down, with a needless romantic subplot involving Achilles and Athena and that aforementioned "mole in our ranks" subplot played too floridly for its own good.Oddly, one thing that probably helped sinkedat the box office turns out to be one of its most charming (if undeniably retro) elements, namely the stop motion animation utilized to bring thebattles to life. This is not the near seamlessly fluid work that has come to define such modern masters of the art like Nick Park ( Chicken Run ) or Henry Selick ( Coraline The Nightmare Before Christmas ), but a relatively more "herky jerky" look that recalls some of the earlier work of icons like Ray Harryhausen or even the lower fi offerings of studios like Rankin Bass ( Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer ). Ironically, this is one element thatprobably appeal both to the kids, who will be delighted by its slightly wacky quality, as well as adults, who will be swept up in waves of nostalgia.