Robot Jox

Robot Jox
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Stuart Gordon
Written by	Stuart Gordon Joe Haldeman
Starring	Gary Graham Anne-Marie Johnson Paul Koslo
Music by	Frédéric Talgorn
Cinematography	Mac Ahlberg
Editing by	Lori Ball Ted Nicolaou
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures MGM/UA Home Entertainment
Release date(s)	November 21, 1990
Running time	85 min
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$10,000,000 (estimated)
Followed by	Robot Wars
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Robot Jox is a 1990 science fiction film directed by Stuart Gordon, and starring Gary Graham, Anne-Marie Johnson, and Paul Koslo.

Plot

The movie is set fifty years after a world-wide nuclear war almost destroyed mankind. War is outlawed and the two superpowers, the Americans and their nemesis the Confederation, handle territorial disputes in a different way. Each fields a giant robot to fight one-on-one battles in official matches, each piloted by a man inside, known as robot jockeys, or "jox". The contest for possession of Alaska will be fought by two of the best. The conscientious Jim (with the fighting name Achilles) fights for the Americans. Opposing him for the Confederation is Alexander, a ruthless and bloodthirsty adversary with Russian accent who has killed his previous nine American opponents. Achilles's robot is a Matsumoto-14 colored in red and white, with a roughly humanoid design. Alexander's robot is a black and yellow Vovalevsky-42 and has a less-anthropomorphic design with four legs. During a battle for Alaska, Alexander used a weapon classified as long-range during the final hand-to-hand combat and the match is declared inconclusive and the stewardship of Alaska remains undetermined until the rematch in Death Valley a week later. The incident also caused the death of 300 spectators. Jim declines to fight since he has fulfilled his contract of ten matches and new genetically-engineered jox look to take his place. One of them is Athena who defends Achilles' decision to retire and declares that she does not think he is a coward. Athena is selected to be the next, and first female, robot jox. Upon hearing this, Jim comes out of his short retirement and starts training for the rematch. With a traitor feeding the Confederation secret weapons information, Achilles faces obstacles at every turn in the hardest battle of his life.

The "Robots"

Technically, the machines in Robot Jox are not really robots as much as they are anthropomorphic vehicles. An onboard human is in control of all the mech's functions, with very little automation or independent computer control; therefore, while the term "giant robot" is popular and summons up quite the vivid imagery, it is not strictly accurate.

Production

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The movie was one of the most ambitious science fiction movies of its time, attempting a concept that has never been tried before until the film Transformers released in 2007. Whereas Transformers uses CGI effects to portray the giant robots, Robot Jox was done with stop-motion animation under the direction of David Allen.

Reception

Robot Jox was nominated for Best Film for the 1990 International Fantasy Film Award.

Cast

External links

• Robot Jox at the Internet Movie Database