There is a lot of affection out among film enthusiasts for Full Moon Productions, producer/director Charles Band’s low-budget distributor that was dedicated to making inexpensive science fiction and horror features for both theatrical and home video markets. The company scored an early cult hit with horror flick Puppetmaster, and has continued to produce an ongoing line of pulp productions through to the present day.

Robot Wars, which Band directed, is a 1993 science fiction film. Set in the mid-21st century, it depicts a future government of “North Hemi” defending itself from “Centro” attacks. Central to their defence is the MRAS-2 giant robot: a scorpion-like vehicle armed with a powerful laser.

Archaeologist Leda Fanning (Barbara Crampton) suspects something amiss underneath an abandoned 1990s ghost town, and has called in journalist friend Annie (Lisa Rinna). Robot pilot Drake (Don Michael Paul) and his comrade Stumpy (James Staley) are butting heads with their inflexible commander Rooney (Peter Haskell). Visiting General Wa-Lee (Danny Kamekona) is showing great interest in the MRAS-2’s performance.

For such a short film (72 minutes, including titles), Robot Wars shoves quite a large number of characters into its narrative. It would be fair to claim they are well fleshed-out or original, but there is an attention given to them that is fairly rare for this kind of direct-to-video filler. Crampton does give a performance above and beyond the needs of the screenplay, which is worth noting and appreciating.

It is also worth noting the quite impressive stop-motion animation undertaken to bring the film’s giant robot technology to life. Given that the film was released in the same year of Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, the presence of more old-fashioned technology does feel rather like a noble ‘last hurrah’ – to be replaced in short fashion by unconvincing CGI.

There is some smart low-budgeting filmmaking here, as half of the plot takes place in a 1990s American ghost town that was abandoned during post-millennial conflicts – some deserted Los Angeles backstreets make for a very inexpensive setting.

Altogether there is something rather reminiscent of television drama Babylon 5 here: not in the story, but in the specific artificiality of the sets, and the slightly heightened performances of the actors. That was a production with its own budget limitations, particularly during its fairly rough first season, so I suppose it is not too strange to notice a resemblance. The screenplay here is nothing so ambitious, of course, but to its credit it does act as a reasonable enough late night diversion. This is not great cinema – I doubt you could even make an argument for it being good cinema – but it has an aspiration that I cannot help but admire.