We are dead. We are Robot Jox.

About a month ago I was struck with the odd craving to find a movie that I had vaguely remembered from childhood. This was proving to be quite a challenge, since I had no clue what the movie was called, and my memories of said movie were fleeting. In fact, during my search, I considered the idea that I had made the movie up, or that it was a recurring dream that I had as a child and just assumed it was real. In order to sooth my restless memory, I began telling everyone I could about this film.

My description of the film was the same every time:

This movie may or may not be real... and it may or may not have starred Jean Claude Van-Damme. So it's the distant future, and the countries of the world don't fight wars anymore... instead they settle their differences in gladiatorial fights with giant robots. These robots are piloted by a guy... and I think one of those guys was Jean Claude Van-Damme. And I think they fought in a large desert wasteland.

I had told that story to a large number of my pop-culture-saavy friends hoping that one of them could connect with me. Nick and I had spent over an hour on IMBD.com looking at every Van-Damme movie on the planet. We were able to conclude two things from our extensive search: he was not in any mech-battling movies, and there are too many movies in which he plays a twin of himself. Why the hell would you want Van-Damme to play two characters in a movie when he has enough trouble playing one? He must have had a doppelgänger clause in his contract.

I had brought it up one night at Cellar Dweller practice--when all of the Dwellers are in the same room, there is virtually no pop culture reference you can make that someone won't get... and this was no exception! After giving my little speech about the movie, Larry spoke up and said that the movie was indeed real and that he vaguely remembered it as well! This proved at least that I wasn't dreaming this stuff up, that there was in fact a live action giant-fighting-robot movie! The other Dwellers had never heard of it, but they all agreed that the movie would have to be extremely "terrible and very badass."

A week later, we were in the town of Franklin performing Spocktoberfest. We were currently in the middle of the improv game "World's Worst" (the audience calls out a noun and we give the world's worst presentation of it). The suggestion we were working with was "wedding toast." So, I took a desperate chance: I stepped forward and gave my "have you seen this robot movie" speech, pretending to just be a drunk best man (but deep inside I was hoping that someone in the audience would connect with my description and yell out the name of the movie!) While no one knew what movie I was talking about, everyone thought it was hilarious.

A few days after the performance I was back at school working crazily on my midterm assignments. Then my computer made that warm, bubbly bleep that signaled a new e-mail message. It was an e-mail from James. The subject was: "Is this the movie?" And the only thing in the body of the message was a hyperlink: Robot Jox.

As the page loaded and I saw the photos and description for the movie, a flood of memories returned to me. The Panama Canal had been blown to bits and the waters of my childhood were filling the room. The giant robots! The Russo-German-Scottish bad guy! The desert fight scenes! My God! The movie was real. I watched the trailer and I felt like I was back in grade school, watching a tape of the movie until it was worn out.

I quickly logged on to my family's Blockbuster account and added the movie to our queue. Within a week and a half, Robot Jox was delivered to my mailbox. Last Saturday, I gathered with my chums and watched this 90-minute thrill ride. Throughout the week, I plan on having more showings of the film-- with my friends here at school, and then again with the Dwellers. It's gonna be a good week.

Posted by MikeRubino at October 30, 2006 10:31 AM | TrackBack