In a future where the world has been ravaged by petty squabbles between global superpowers and nuclear bombs, the surviving two nations have agreed to outlaw war in its entirety. After all, why have a pissing contest that costs thousands of lives when you can just Michael Bay that shit with two dudes in manga-esque mechs duking it out for king and country instead?

ROBOT JOX (1990)
Genre: Sci-Fi
Director: Stuart Gordon
Rated: PG
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Half a century after a doozie of a nuclear holocaust, only the Yanks and the Ruskies remain because it’s the 90s and the Koreans weren’t as scary then. Having decided that full scale warfare is just downright bad for the planet, but still a necessary pastime, the Western Market and the Russian Confederation now resolve their conflicts in huge arenas with giant robots piloted by the best of the best, known as Robot Jox.

Only the most physically fit specimens make the grade, because once they’ve suited up, they must endure the Herculean feat of standing in one place waving their arms about until someone emerges victorious. To that end, the Market has spent significant financial resources on genetically engineered “gen jox”, because it’s not like building, repairing and maintaining gargantuan mechs is a drain on the economy already.

Market Jox Achilles’ final contracted fight is against the Confederation’s Alexander, who’s been killing off the Market’s team one man at a time. As the skirmish starts, mild-mannered, origami aficionado and robot designer extraordinaire, Doc Matsumoto, realises that the fancy new weapon he’s just installed is as useful as a Nutty Buddy to a human replica of a GI Joe doll. It turns out that someone has been flapping their gums to the Confederation in the most unpatriotic of acts – espionage!

On top of that bombshell, Achilles royally fucks up the smackdown when he dives into the path of an errant rocket-powered robot hand launched by Alexander that is making its way towards the bleachers at a speed a milk float would be embarrassed about.

Yes, I said bleachers. There is a real live-but-not-for-long audience mere feet away from this spectacle that Achilles decides to rescue so that they can continue to contribute to the species’ gene pool. Luckily for mankind, they get a face full of fiery robot ass instead.

The judges declare a rematch because of all those pesky civilians putting an early stop to the battle by getting their severed limbs and salty tears all over the place, but Achilles refuses to get involved now that his ten fight contract has been fulfilled.

With no more regular jox on the roster, the gen jox finally get their chance to compete for the coveted position. Athena, Achilles’ love interest and perpetual victim of sexual harassment in the workplace, decides she has something to prove what with having a vagina, and beats out the other jox for the spot.

Unfortunately for Athena, as well as being ignorant of the unflattering effect of spandex on a lady’s already modest mammaries, she loses her prestigious post when Achilles gets wind of her triumph and returns to the world of the jox to take her place against Alexander in a manly show of chivalry.

Usurping the job she was cooked up in a tube for wasn’t perhaps the best way to profess his love, and Athena drops hints to this effect by shooting him with a tranquilliser gun, commandeering his uniform, and locking him in his apartment. Off she trots to the arena in her cunning disguise, aka a helmet, to face Alexander in glorious stop-motion combat.

All is not lost, as Achilles comes to in record time and devises a means of escape by remotely piloting his car through his own wall using a monitor that would struggle to do justice to Pong and a remote control with an antennae as long as Henry Gilbert’s twitter handle.

Will Achilles triumph or crash and burn? Has the Umbrella Corporation moved into the field of robotics? And what’s up with his dick?

We dare you to buy Robot Jox on DVD!

Author Gamer Girl writes for FrontTowardsGamer.com and GamerGirlTalk.com. It is highly recommended you follow her on Twitter.
Previously in Poison Popcorn: SLEEPSTALKER: THE SANDMAN’S LAST RITES! See previous Poison Popcorns right fucking here!