Robot Riot (2020) User Reviews

Bad CGI and a lack of storyline does not make for great entertainment...

[paul_haakonsen · 2/10 · 24 August 2020]

Well, I am sure that there are some robo-geeks out there that might get something out of the 2020 movie titled "Robot Riot". However, if you sit down to watch this movie for the sake of entertainment, I suggest you move along to something else. This movie just didn't cut it in terms of proper entertainment.

The storyline was essentially non-existing. People were being dropped into a hot zone with little or no memory and they had to fight - and wait for it - not only the robots in the zone, but also other people! Yeah, that was essentially it. End of story. Well, end of no-story more adequately.

The acting in the movie was adequate, taking into consideration the lack of storyline, the lack of proper effects and the lack of motivation. I can't claim to be familiar with anyone on the cast list, nor would I be able to single anyone out and say this or that person performed more outstanding in comparison to the rest. All in all, it was a bland performance experience.

The special effects were dubious at best. I mean, the robots were as animated as something you'd see in a 1990s Mech computer game. It wasn't realistic, nor believable. And the movie suffered terribly from it, especially since a movie such as "Robot Riot" should have great CGI, something that will dazzle the audience and leave a lasting impression. Sure, there was an impression from the CGI, it just wasn't a positive one.

I am rating "Robot Riot" a generous two out of ten stars, as this was a low budget movie without anything that even resembled a storyline. I managed to sit through the entire ordeal though, but believe you me, this is not a movie that will ever again find its way to my TV.

CGI from High School Students

[OzMovieWatcher · 2/10 · 25 August 2020]

The CGI of the robots is inconsistent... In one scene look almost authentic, while in others are just so fake. Makes me think they tasked student in CGI to undertake different segments... Some CGI students got an A+ while others barely made an F.

I found the story line very week, the acting bad and overall, just a waste of time to watch.

I am thinking which is worse? This movie or Sharknado...?

Poor

[sculptoroid · 2/10 · 23 August 2020]

Very poor production. People get surprised when a noisy slow moving 30ft tall robot appears 100yards from them.

I've seen much worse b-grade films

[Top_Dawg_Critic · 5/10 · 30 August 2020]

Clearly this was a low budget b-grade film, and although flawed, I've seen much worse with bigger budgets.

The directing wasn't great, but the cinematography was. Sure the CGI wasn't great, but at least the robots were fairly realistic. The story was bland, and didn't expand past guns vs robots much. This movie probably would've been better shot as a short film, instead of the 88 min runtime. There were very obvious plot and technical issues.

The score however, was on point and surprisingly effective, especially for a b-grade film. Most of the cast - that I've never heard of, performed quite well, with the exception of the wacky evil commander played by Jason Leyva, who was terrible and took away from the films seriousness.

Nevertheless, I wasn't bored or falling asleep. That alone in my book makes this film worthy of my 5/10

1883 CGI,weird camera shots and poor weird conversations

[mdanilencu · 1/10 · 11 September 2020]

First of all, the plot. Why would the military organise such a weird experiment? Those mechs are not technically designed to fight against foot troops but other giant machines. And why would they leave such an obviously very expensive experiment under the supervision of 3 men? And they were doing it from inside the dangerous area? Remotely? They didn't even need to be there...

They had the obviously much more advanced humanoid robots which would have served the scope of the experiment much better but instead they use just 1 for...what was that robot even doing there?

Okay, the effects were baad. Fire couldn't stay attached to the burning object. I've seen better mechs in old video games and they were soo slow. Given their supposed huge weight, they should have toppled over on their first step.

What else? All the weapons were made of plastic, the mechs were shooting blanks 99% of the time,the conversations were badly written and timed and the control room was enragingly not given any effort at all. Was the whole operation running on an ENIAC? They had all of this amazing technology but not colour camera?, no gps maps? There was so little information on all of those fancy displays but somehow they were fully aware of what was going on. Magic. And the most enraging things of all: They guy was typing during a loading screen.

That's It. I've Had Enough.

[derek-a-charette100 · 1/10 · 29 September 2020]

I have become so disgusted by all of the monumentally terrible modern Sci-Fi / Action simpleton films with zero substance and zero thought and creativity, that I am going to write my own Sci-Fi Action movie script, and it will be better than these pathetic movies. I have no idea what I am doing, I have zero education of any form regarding filmmaking or script writing. I am a carpenter and a guitar player, which carries zero qualifications to write a movie script, but my movie will be better than this trash. Modern movies are made to be played all over the world, and so it has to be made with as little dialogue as possible. Mindless. Useless. Soulless. Heartless, Gutless. Hopeless. It appears that movie budgets have become so small, that they can't even afford to use $5 blood burst packs to realistically simulate a person being shot, and instead, they would rather spend 5 hours to make a CGI bullet strike, that is so unrealistic that it makes me cringe. I must say, that I lack the cognitive capacity to understand the sensibility of using this method. They were making movies in the 80's with ketchup packets for fake blood, and painted backdrops that look more realistic than this guttermeal of modern low budget CGI.

Covid was more enjoyable than this.

[gareth-eyers · 1/10 · 12 June 2021]

My 15 yo son wanted to watch this. Killer robots, explosions and awesome tech what's not to like?

Turns out it's the entirety of this dross.

The plot has more holes than a fishing net. The acting is so bad it makes the worst daytime American soaps look positively Oscar in comparison. The CGI sucked and was inconsistent like a video game from the late 90's.

Where were the robot riots?

Yes the final scene filled me with dread....only because it leaves the door open for a sequel. Please don't make a sequel.

Bad but watchable

[moorek · 3/10 · 9 January 2021]

This is a filler movie. The kind you watch when you want something mindless that you don't have to think about. But also the kind that afterwards you want to scream why did they do this or that.

PLOT. Simplistic. Humans against robots. Robot develop their own AI and go rogue.

SETTING. Very odd. Clearly a small mainly deserted town and the filming location does call it a ghost town. I loved that having been through similar small deserted town in the prairies. But then we see them in industrial warehouse areas that are inconsistent with the initial setting.

ACTING. Overall good. I've only seen the lead in other things but none of them really stand out. The Commander was over-the-top but not as bad as I thought he would be from the trailer.

CGI. Some times it is excellent. In fact a few times I wondered if they had made a working model of some of the robots. But then other times the CGI was just bad.

QUIRKS. By quirks, I mean things that make you wonder why it was in the movie. How could the screenwriters be so obtuse to not understand the problem? So some things such as:

Subplot with a female soldier who kills another soldier and then is killed herself. We have nothing in the plot line to explain that. Plus she seems to have been there for awhile but they powers to be don't seen to care. Plus she killed the male soldier in the same building were there are a line of "heads" for the android to use. But none of that goes anywhere.

No tech until the tech guy shows up and now they have the machines to remove the chips, laptops etc. And if the tech was working there and was thrown out into the town from the command centre then you'd think forcing back into the centre would make sense.

Subplot with the android that goes no where. We rarely see him. He foolishly leads them to a building with MECS and more powerful weapons. He really has no role but a large device to turn off the humans which you'd think they would have noticed on him before this. After all it was too big for a pocket. Plus why would you build such huge machines if you had the skill to make androids so life-like the other humans could not identify them. That would be the more useful weapon.

I'm giving the movie too much thought - more than the Director or screen writers. It's worth a watch to see the small town setting and wonder why the plot is so all over the place.

No Human

[nogodnomasters · 3/10 · 8 September 2020]

A group of army soldiers volunteered to be part of Project Mechwood. What they didn't know was they were volunteering to have their memories wiped and be hunted by large killer robots inside a set perimeter. The film was like a video game as contestants looked for guns and sometimes fragged each other. Dialogue and characters didn't make it for me.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

This movie is trash

[jasonhartley-03417 · 1/10 · 23 September 2020]

Horrible plot Horrible story line Unbelievably bad acting

Robots hunting humans

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 31 January 2022]

Several people find themselves being hunted by robots in an isolated community. Director/co-writer Ryan Staples Scott keeps the enjoyable story zipping along at a brisk pace, generates a good deal of tension, maintains a tough gritty tone throughout, and stages the exciting action with aplomb. The solid acting from the competent no-name cast helps a lot: Ryan Merriman as the amiable Shane, Emily Hileman as the ruthless Green, Sarah J. Batholomew as the feisty Piper, Cait Brasel as the perky Madison, Duncan Barrett Brown as the jerky Brock, and Jamie Costa as the two-fisted Peterson. The CGI robots looks pretty gnarly, too. A fun flick.

Quite good for a "B" Man V. Robots Movie. Worth a look

[refordgarry · 6/10 · 21 August 2020]

The machines were pretty realistic, if not a bit incompetent at killing people, due to the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (apparently). Comforting to know if that's how A. I. 's going to work then Tom Connor probably WILL save us one day. But I was not bored by Robot Riot, and I quite liked how the plot really DID adhere to the notion of the survival of the fittest. For those humans that really CAN sprint 100 meters faster to dodge 200-round-per-second machine guns fired by incompetent robots - then it's at least rooted in reality - right?

Slow Robots and Maniacal General

[groves-terry · 3/10 · 30 November 2021]

Pretty thin plot line sees a General with only two staff members, both sergeants, in command of hundreds of prototype military robots.

Tie this in with memory erased soldiers who seem to remember how to use weapons and be overly testosteronic.

Unbelievable dialogue and unrealistic action scenes make this a movie worth oassy by.

The robots are kind of cool though.

Stupid

[aifleming · 1/10 · 26 May 2021]

Giant robots fail to kill 4 inept actors.

The basic premise is just about OK but the huge plot failings, stupidity of robots, terrible acting and lame storyline of this budget b-movie makes it a farcical joke.

Essentially a bunch of mind-wiped soldiers get dropped in to test the capabilities of hulking Robotic mechs. They quickly find they are the latest of a long line of previous test subjects and that they are trapped in an old "town of the future".

Armed with a few electric rifles, a grenade launcher and a few machetes, the 4 protagonists set about systematically wiping out entire platoons of advanced robotic soldiers before escaping and leaving the mad puppet master in charge to his fate at the hands of his mechanical children.

The initial test subjects who dropped in before the film starts must have already been dead as there is no way the robot beasties could have killed them as they are, quite frankly, a colossal waste of money.

I fail to see how a gigantic walking behemoth armed with numerous machine guns, heavy cannons & rocket launchers can so consistently miss a target to the point that 5 of these "killing machines" lose a firefight with 4 barely competent soldiers lined up 20 yards ahead of them.

Whilst not a terribly serious movie, some sort of threat from these metal monsters would have been nice, instead you are left wondering if the robots are even trying of if thier guns are even loaded.

It's just about watchable.

Killer robots

[vilseipannkakan74 · 4/10 · 19 September 2020]

The story doesn't make sense and there's no logic. But it has killer robots. If you like stories about robots who intend to destroy humanity you can give it a go even though the robots are surprisingly bad at killing humans. Do not expect too much because it will probably not win any prize.

Don't

[mykjohnson · 1/10 · 20 December 2020]

Just don't 💩. So... I can't wholeheartedly recommend this movie

Better than you might expect

[tellstar · 5/10 · 24 August 2020]

No SF gold in them thar hills, but the robots look pretty good, despite their inability to hit the broad side of a barn with rapid-fire machine gun volleys. No surprises, but no boredom either. Actors were working hard, too. The type of movie that you can enjoyably leave on while you work at something else.

Watchable man vs machine mash up....

[s3276169 · 6/10 · 22 August 2020]

Its surprising how proficient a lot of B films are becoming at actually being watchable. The rather oddly titled "Robot Riot" being a case in question.

Its basic, no frills stuff but it makes decent use of what it does have on offer. A workable if unsurprising story, reasonable robot CGI and lots of varied action.

A decent choice for a quiet afternoon.

6/10.

Hour and a half film.

[davidjackson-78181 · 6/10 · 18 December 2020]

Not the worst B movie ive watched filled hour and a half very nicely.