Shaun Watson reviews�

�Part Two of the Jimmie Rodgers Collection

Movie poster from the Internet Movie Database Robot Ninja dir: J.R. Bookwalter Michael Todd as Lenny Miller/Robot Ninja Bogdan Pecic as Dr. Hubert Goodknight Maria Markovic as Sanchez Floyd Ewing Jr. as Officer Hickox Bill Morrison as Revelle James L. Edwards as Sculley and J.R. Bookwalter as Spinell featuring Burt Ward as Stanley Kane Linnea Quigley as Miss Barbeau David DeCoteau as Russ Mazzola and David Lange as Greg

Lenny's the hottest selling comic book artist in the region with his comic book called Robot Ninja. He's so successful that when his publisher Stanley Kane(Burt Ward, "Batman"[TV](1966), Alien Force) and his secretary Miss Barbeau(scream queen Linnea Quigley, The Guyver, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers) sell the media rights to a big name production company, "Robot Ninja" becomes a smash TV hit overnight! Lenny doesn't like the way the show is going, and he lets the producers know it and stomps out to his car.
Driving along, he sees a young couple being assaulted by three criminals: Sanchez the dyke(Maria Markovic, The Dead Next Door), Skully the druggie(James L. Edwards, Polymorph) and Revelle(Bill Morrison, The Wizard of Speed and Time). Lenny tries to intervene, but gets his ass handed to him and gets the young couple killed for his meddling. Before the criminals could kill him, Officer Hickox(Floyd Ewing Jr., Skinned Alive) shows up and gets him to safety.
The next morning, Lenny is struck with an idea and shares it with his inventor friend Dr. Goodknight(Bogdan Pecic, Zombie Cop). He says that those guys wouldn't have been able to do that to anyone�if the Robot Ninja was around. He convinces Goodknight to build a Robot Ninja suit for him to go and fight criminals in. The montage that switches between Goodknight building the Robot Ninja costume and Lenny training his body is hilarious. On his first night out hunting the gang of killers, Lenny makes sure that he'll be awake to fight crooks. He eats a handful of Vivarin and drives off in his Camaro to fight evil, unawares that he's being tailed by Ofc. Hickox.
In his first real battle, he kills Revelle and makes a true enemy of Sanchez. He also ends up killing one of the people he tried to save. For that, he gets the J. Jonah Jameson treatment. It's that first taste of fame(or infamy) that seems to drive Lenny over the line of insanity, because he starts to think that what he draws will actually happen. If he draws that he will win, then there's now way he could lose, right? Wrong. In his second battle, he learns that his drawings are not a prophetic as he wishes. As the demands and hazards of the position Robot Ninja increase greatly with each hour he spends in costume, the toll it takes forces Lenny to an unfortunate end--the best part about the movie. What makes it so good is that the movie is over, but it was already finished before it began.

Robot Ninja fails on so many levels. First thing, let's examine who's responsible for this. It turns out not only did then 22-year-old J.R. Bookwalter direct this movie, he also wrote it, edited it, produced it, scored and performed its musical pieces. Our director is a regular Rennaisance man, who is also responsible for quality films like Kingdom of the Vampire, Humanoids From Atlantis, Galaxy of the Dinosaurs and The Dead Next Door. He's so well known in his circle of filmmakers, he was able to get his friend David DeCoteau(dir.: Dr. Alien, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama) to be in the film. Because of the combined pedigrees, it's no wonder that this movie failed with such a simple and awesome name. The script was titled ROBOT NINJA. It could have been like Keita Amemiya's Cyber Ninja, but stateside. Unfortunately, far too many factors weighed against it to even come close.
The costumes sucked, the makeup sucked, the dialogue sucked, the acting was abominable(see? SAT words do pay off) yet the plot had a good start at becoming better than its performing parts. Sadly, it did not transcend past the most horrible part of the whole film: Lenny's artwork. Not only does the art suck badly, it's drawn by a real artist(David Lange, who was given credit! That he asked for!! On purpose! ), and not cobbled together by the actor. I'd excuse the actor, but not the artist. It pisses me off to think that this horrid component of the movie is the most realistic part. Artistically speaking, this movie fellates all kinds of goat testicles.

The only robot ninja I can accept is the Cyber-Ninja from Metal Gear Solid[VG].

• The opening and closing credit sequences are funny. They remind me of my art in middle school.
• The montage where Lenny trains himself in getting stronger(but NOT in ninjitsu) juxtaposed with Dr. Goodknight building the Robot Ninja suit.
• Legendary scream queen Linnea Quigley in the role of Miss Barbeau. Bend at the knees, dear.
• The TV reporter's newscast. Wow, she's trying really hard. By that, I mean she sucks.
• At the beginning, the Robot Ninja on the TV show tells kids to "stay away from drugs". Throughout the rest of the movie, Lenny as the Robot Ninja takes all the upppers he can get his hands on. He's high as a kite and hallucinating when he finds the bad guys(who he now sees as demons, monsters and zombies) and kills them.
• Lenny pulling a Tetsuo the Iron Man by shoving metal and plastic into his damaged arm to repair it.

Sanchez the dyke tells her victim as she rapes him:

"You ain't much of a man, man!"

"I AM THE ROBOT NINJA, AND I KICK ASS!"

"J-just like I planned."