Resiklo

In 2021,  aliens (nicknamed “Balangs” or locusts) have invaded and devastated planet earth. The humans they don’t kill have been transformed into mutant slaves (“Motanos”). Some people have survived to fight back. In the Philippines, the community in “Paraiso” camp are protected by Crisval Sarmiento (Bong Revilla Jr.), a hunk of a soldier who mourns the loss of his wife and daughter in the invasion. On patrol, Crisval rescues the beautiful Bianca and her young sister Bambam, defeating the aliens with his improvised armored tractor.
Soon after, Crisval is betrayed and captured during an expedition. Taken to enemy headquarters he is dispatched to a slow and excruciating death by Hades, the evil head of the Motanos. The aliens launch an attack on Paraiso but Crisval escapes and turns the tide by piloting a giant fighting robot built secretly from recycled and junk parts by geeky mechanic Denz. Crisval steps up the attack culminating in a battle of aliens, robots, mutants, and men and the destruction of enemy headquarters. But in the course of the fight, Crisval has discovered Bianca’s terrible secret and wonders if she has survived.
With its alien versus human conflict, Resiklo emerges as a compendium of science-futuristic fiction, from Soylent Green where humans are recycled for food, through the apocalyptic anarchy of Mad Max, the Cold War heroics of Star Wars, to our present day Transformers, all inflected with the bravado of Japanese mecha anime. It updates a David and Goliath tale into topical themes of nature versus technology, environmental destruction versus conservation. It falls to the Third World of scrap scavengers and creative tinkerers to save the human race, proving that recycling is the salvation of the world. But Reyes does not loiter to discuss the finer points of the environment. He keeps the action moving in hand-to-hand combat where Revilla spins, flips, lunges with all guns blazing and knives glinting, and in metal-to-metal robot wrestling. Revilla’s robot grapples with a screeching alien during the Paraiso attack; and stomps out the Lord of the Balangs in the final crunchy wrestle. These SFX animations happily lack the anonymous slickness of their Hollywood brethren and instead take on individual personalities. They are reminiscent of the charms of a Ray Harryhausen movie and all the better for it.