Sweet! We hit total suck!
The Experiment
Once again! We're back with 13th season and, once again, we have the content that is green screened and not a great bunch of host segments.
However, there is one host segment that did stand out among the rest as being pretty good. When there comes a cool EXTREME 90's Jonah and a cool 90's theme world "commercial", anyone who was a part of that era will more than likely at least have a smile.
Beyond that, we see Tom Servo's current Jonah host voice, Baron Vaughn, in his most prominent real person role. This really does not go well. His dialogue is stilted, his performance is lack-luster and it's a terrible attempt at an introduction to the new hostess for the next episode, Emily Marsh.
Robot Wars
In a dystopian future, civilization is rather vague and we use big robots to get across wastelands. Another faction is attempting to take over this new civilization through these big robots and more vague things happen in an old abandoned city.
What makes this movie bad?
Most of this movie is based around unlikeable characters, objectifying damsels in distress, terrible special effects and even worse acting. The main protagonist is among some of the worst in MST history. That includes Death Stalker, Max Keller, Mitchell and that one guy from Castleton. Not only is he intolerable, but the female co-star and her partner are supposed to be attracted to him. We're supposed to buy that? Their dialogue is beyond stilted and awful!
The rest of the movie is filler. There's supposed to be some war going on with our so-called "civilization" that we never see and we're given scenes that have nothing to do with the rest of the movie.
There's supposed to be some kind of plot beyond all of this about government corruption and cover-ups, but that's all about as shallow as a misty puddle. The plot is only brought up when they need something convenient to talk about to pad a scene. When it all comes together, the film is a gigantic mess.
The Riffs
These are by far the best thing about the entire episode. They go so far as to actually save the entire experiment and make it an actual moderately good episode. As bad as the movie is, it is off set quite well by our host and the bots. Though, there are a few references that are a bit out of character for MST3K as a whole, it's still spot on timing and delivery.
The Episode
Not the strongest experiment around. It's got some golden riffs, but everything around these riffs are very mediocre and/or bland. The movie to riff ratio is shakey, given the film's quality. When I say our protagonist is bad, some of his scenes are borderline unwatchable. All in all, it's one you could come back to, but as for top 10 lists, you're probably not going to see this one very much. This is probably a good, solid bronze medal.