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Once upon a time, a man named Jim Wynorski made a killer robot flick called Chopping Mall. Nearly two decades later, he made a giant monster movie called Curse Of The Komodo. Just last year, he put the two films in a blender and got another killer robot flick disappointingly similar to CotK. It was called Shockwave. It should've and could've been Chopping Mall on awesome steroids, but suffered from simply being a Jim Wynorski film. It aired on the Sci Fi Channel under the title AI Assault, and everyone hated it, just because it was a Sci Fi Channel Original movie, and hating on those, regardless of actual quality, is all the rage nowadays.

If your wondering why a film suffers from simply being a Jim Wynorski film, its because this man reuses sets, actors, even the scripts. Shockwave is basically just Curse Of The Komodo with robots instead of a giant lizard. Jim Wynorski also makes sure his films include the monster(s) standing around letting themselves get shot, and people standing around letting the monster(s) kill them. Never do actors have to reload their toy guns, or suffer recoil. Never are the monster(s) effected by the hail of bullets hitting them head on. Shockwave has all of this. But at least the CG animator included bullet squibs this time.

Two highly advanced combat robots suffer some malfunctions while in transit, and wind up on a deserted island. Some marines are sent in to take the battle bots out, because the bots are malfunctioning and are a threat to humanity, as it wouldn't be much of a killer robot movie if these were friendly robots. Throw in some crooks on the run, and you've got Jim Wynorski recycling an old script for a quick buck. Thing is, there's actually some pretty neat stuff in Shockwave.

First, the robots themselves. They look like giant metal Frisbees with four tube-like legs. Though there are times when the effects are kind of iffy, they look a bit better than most Sci Fi Channel movie monsters, especially during the climax in the rain. They do two things for the entire runtime of the film: Stand around getting shot or stomping around the island killing people. Their forms of attack are:

-A Death ray that constantly switches between incinerating things, melting things, and blowing things up. Used most often.
-Dual machines guns with incredibly bad aim. Used only once.
-Spinning disks for slicing stuff up. Used only once yet again.
-What I like to call "The Sucker Punch of Ultimate Doom". All movie monsters are capable of this attack. Its where the monster kills someone with its bare hands (or claws) without spilling a single drop of blood. There's one scene here where a robot kills the passengers and crew of a transport jet using only this technique.

As you might of guessed, these bots are pretty nifty. Their also completely bulletproof, even though it seems that in Jim Wynorski films, the harder you pull the trigger the more damage the bullet does, even though no matter how hard you pull the trigger you most you'll be able to do to the monster attacking you is stun it for a moment or two. The acting, the direction, and the writing I won't talk about, seeing as how its all rather mediocre. One thing that IS good though, is the funky techno theme song. Excuse me while I hum it for a moment...

"Doo doo doo dooooo, doo doo doo doo doo, do dooo (whir, clank)" Awesomeness. I love the mechanical noises thrown in just because this is a movie about robots. About the action sequences. The pre-title attack, cool. The plane attack immediately after the credits, cool. Then things slow down until the third act, when the cool robot attacks return in full force.

Shockwave isn't anything spectacular. Again, it suffers from being a Jim Wynorski film. But it certainly deserves a better score than the 3.1 rating IMDb gave it. I say go for it!

SCORE:  :smile: :smile: :smile: of five