I usually describe our Film at 11 podcast as my effort to introduce my children to famous movies they haven’t seen. I’m not sure this week’s choice qualifies as famous. Coming from Re-Animator director Stuart Gordon, 1990’s Robot Jox is a straight-up B-movie cheesefest, the kind most fans first discovered back in the day when perusing the second or third shelf down at the local video rental store’s Sci-Fi section.

Despite the film’s obscurity and schlocky nature, I had a feeling my son Thomas would be a good sport for this one. The kid loves anything with giant robots, especially when they smash and bash one another to pieces. Indeed, we had a lot of fun picking the movie apart in our conversation afterward.

Maybe I’ll do something more respectable with Thomas next time, but man, this movie really left me itching to see how he’ll react to Space Truckers!

Title:	Robot Jox
Year of Release:	1990
Director:	Stuart Gordon
Watched On:	Blu-ray
Also Available On:	MGM+ Tubi Pluto TV Roku Channel

The Blu-ray

Part of me feels that Robot Jox is ideally watched on fuzzy, low-res VHS, but I can’t bring myself to go quite that far. The movie was first released on Blu-ray by Shout! Factory in 2015, then reissued in 2017. Both of those copies are now out of print. The license currently resides with Arrow Video, which remastered the film for a new Blu-ray in 2023, available at present exclusively as part of the Enter the Video Store: Empire of Screams box set, where it’s bundled with four other B-movie classics from original studio Empire International Pictures: Dungeonmaster (1985), Dolls (1986), Cellar Dweller (197), and Arena (1989).

Arrow initially released the Enter the Video Store box set in a choice of either a Limited Edition with fancier packaging and more physical swag, or a Standard Edition with just five keepcases in a slipcover box. The latter is more than sufficient for my needs. Each keepcase has reversible cover art, with a new design on one side and older poster art on the other. I prefer the older, cheesier art for all of them.

Robot Jox is presented in its theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. According to the back of the case, the video transfer is a “2K restoration from the original camera negative,” which leads me to assume that no 4K upgrade is planned – not that one would really be needed here. As I suggested, despite its brief theatrical run, this movie was really made with VHS viewing in mind. If anything, the 1.85:1 framing looks a little tight and many scenes are deliberately softened with aggressive fog and mist filters to hide seams in the visual effects.

The 1080p image is already as sharp as this movie needs to be – probably too sharp, as the wires holding up the robot models are exposed in more than a few scenes. The picture is also grainy as hell, especially during opticals (this movie has tons of those) but pretty much everywhere else as well. 4K would undoubtedly just make the grain look even harsher than it does now. On the other hand, colors are surprisingly rich and vibrant. Frankly, the disc is much more watchable than a movie like Robot Jox deserves.

Originally mixed in Ultra Stereo, the movie’s soundtrack is authored in PCM 2.0 format on disc. The audio is clear and occasionally boasts some mild surround activity and moderate dynamic range, but generally sounds flat. However, the Blu-ray’s audio is significantly better than the free (with ads) streaming copy I sampled on Tubi, which sounds dreadful in comparison.

New to Arrow as of 2023 are interviews with actors Gary Graham (Achilles) and Anne-Marie Johnson (Athena), plus a half-hour appreciation for the film’s visual effects by other industry VFX artists. Carried over from prior video releases are two audio commentaries (one by director Stuart Gordon, another by some of the VFX team), an interview with actor Paul Koslo (Alexander), a featurette devoted to a collector of various behind-the-scenes production art and other items from this movie, some image galleries, production notes, and a trailer.