Lightly entertaining but instantly forgettable follow-up to the earlier movie "Robot Jox". The story has to do with rebels dubbed "Centros" who are a threat to survivors of some sort of apocalypse. In this setting, guys like Drake (Don Michael Paul) function as pilots of enormous robot spiders that both transport passengers and can be used as battle vehicles. Drake meets crusading archaeologist Leda (Barbara Crampton),and although they get off on the wrong foot, it seems that romance will be in the air. Soon Drake's going to have his hands full battling a megalomaniac named Wa-Lee (Danny Kamekona).

Veteran film director Albert Band ("I Bury the Living") took the reigns of this one for his son, Full Moon head honcho Charles Band. While "Robot Wars" manages to be amusing to a minor degree, it's of no real distinction. It's very much a good thing that it runs a trim 72 minutes long. The cast selected is interesting: Paul (writer / director of "Half Past Dead") is a good looking but fairly bland hero, but Crampton of "Re-Animator" fame is spunky and sincere, and Peter Haskell ("Child's Play" 2 and 3) is a hoot as your standard issue greedy corporate creep. It's also amusing to see the two villains from "The Karate Kid Part II", Kamekona and Yuji Okumoto, acting together. James Staley ("Sweet Dreams") supplies the comedy relief, and Ms. Crampton and Lisa Rinna ('Melrose Place') supply the eye candy.

The two most successful elements here are typically excellent David Allen effects, and a soaring music score by David Arkenstone.

This may be passable enough for B movie junkies, just so long as they don't expect too much going in.

Five out of 10.

In the future the world is divided into large nations. The Eastern Alliance want to wage war against the North Hemi by stealing one robot. Only a big haired hero can save us.

Not a realistic view of the future. Bad acting all around.

Guide: No swearing, sex, or nudity even with two Playboy models.

Bad acting, cheap styling, and moronic storytelling are the order of the day in this typical Full Moon production, one of many films made by Charles Band which utilised some stop motion robot effects that he had access to. I love the stop motion work but it's very limited here and the rest of the film is merely an example of the usual cheap science fiction. The main actors are very poor indeed with the exception of Barbara Crampton, who is wasted as the usual blonde love interest/sidekick type character. The film smacks of racism in its depiction of stereotypical Chinese villains while the hero is one of the most useless ever. Unless you have a high tolerance for cheese this isn't really worth your time.