Cyborg Cop.

It's been a long time since I've been able to help the world discover a trashy piece of B-Cinema, so today I am changing that, today I am reminding the world of a 1993 action movie staring 1990's B-Movie king, David Bradley, no not that one...I mean the one in American Samurai, which I also reviewed. And trust me, Bradley was in some truly awful shit across the nineties before he apparently vanished (or changed his name) in 1997, I plan to eventually review all of them but so far I've only been able to find American Samurai, the American Ninja series, this and Total Reality, but for now, Cyborg Cop. Enjoy!

And to be fair to the movie, although it was basically panned by every critic, honestly much of the complaints for the film...aren't really complaints I can agree with. Things like a 'clichéd-ridden plot' are, as you know, truly bullshit criticisms. Also many people complained the film was too violent? So? It's a bloody action movie! If anything the film was too tame. The whole 'standard fare' criticism seems even more bullshitty when you learn that this film went straight to video, I can't find anything about the budget anywhere but I'm assuming this was probably as low budget as you could probably go, so expecting some kind of genre defying story is truly stupid plus it spawned TWO sequels, two truly terrible sequels but come on - Angelina Jolie's first major role came out of those sequels. Thankfully critics who even know half a thing about the medium they are reviewing have recognised the limitations the film has, taken those into account and it has become a cult classic in its own right. What do I think? Well, let's dig in!

Also, John Rhys-Davies is in this...what is with this guy? He is one of those actors who seems to turn up in everything, no matter how obvious bad or not. A lot like Michael Fassbender is these days. David Bradley and John Rhys-Davies together in a cheesy 90's action flick? What could go wrong?

David Bradley plays ex cop Jack Ryan, who is a truly nineties cop, he is trigger happy, means well but doesn't follow the rules and gets in trouble for it. Bradley delivers this performance with some truly wooden, cheesy nineties action flick acting. The amount of entertainment you can get with Ryan seems to depend entirely on who he shares the scene with, ranging from badass, to hilarious, to seemingly on his period. Although I must say I love his skintight clothes, studded belt and bum bag combo, complete with the cowboy boots and tacky necklace he looks like a male stripper. He also has a brother called Philip. Although no character in this movie is as good as Kessel who is played by John Rhys-Davies, he is so hilariously campy, he steals every scene he is in and also has at least three different accents, although many of his goons and henchmen are great too.

Cyborg Cop tells the extremely rushed and underwritten story of brotherly love. One is converted into a cyborg by the mad inventor named Kessel and his team of mad scientists, no seriously, and the other, through contrivances, ends up on the trail. Of course there is a sassy female love interest and loads of plot elements that suggest there is a plot, but none of them go anywhere, like the heroin which is left as a clue and bodies made to look like voodoo victims to fit with the whole voodoo theme the film has for some reason, I guess they had to do something with their setting other than awkward racist stereotypes. And then there is a final cyborg showdown, that is hilariously naff. The End!

The action in the movie is pretty terrible, at times it can be fun and others funny but it is mainly boring and cheap. There are lots of awkward editing around their obvious budget constraints, with a shitload of continuity errors and hilariously obvious stunt doubles plus this is a nearly twenty year old straight to video flick and it shows. It earns at least one point for practical effects though, even if they are really goofy. The Cyborg Assassins themselves are pretty fun, but there isn't enough of them and their final battle is laughable and not in a good way. Also, one other thing I will note is, despite the copy I own claiming to be an 18, the action is almost completely bloodless, especially in shootouts, it looks closer to a Silver Gun Western than it does anything else, I mean sure it's still violent but with all the people dancing when they get shot and all the people getting launched ridiculously into the air with explosions, it feels more like a cartoon than anything else. Which also in turn means, when the film does get gorier, it seems oddly out of place. Maybe they just made it an 18 for all the tits.

One of the biggest problems with the film is how conflicted it feels, when Kessel is on the screen with his plot of cyborg assassins it feels unashamed that it is a trashy B-Movie and it is a lot of fun, bad writing, acting, dialogue and all. When Jack Ryan comes on the screen, playing his whole renegade cop routine on a warpath to get his brother back business, the film plays itself largely straight and serious, without the weight in its writing to back it up so it becomes hilarious and not in a good way. The film dips wildly from fun and camp to shitty and gritty and it doesn't work. It literally looks like it is two different movies though, the special effects for the cyborg's and the sets for the conversion labs look much lower quality, to the point where they could be straight out of Classic Who. Where the rest of the film doesn't look great, but typically nineties and much more modern.

So do I recommend it? Despite condemning the critics at the start of this review... honestly we just don't need Cyborg Cop, I don't know whether it intended to be a rip off of other films or not, but you can't ignore that this is basically a poorman's Terminator. And although I can say stuff like, 'maybe this film would have been better with a bigger budget', as said we just don't need that as we already have the brilliant Terminator franchise (well expect number three and the TV show). It isn't even that enjoyable in its own right, I don't feel quite right calling it bad, because the film has some occasional entertaining moments, but ultimately the thing is just boring. The film moves way too fast to appreciate any elements of the story and the budget is so tiny the third act wasn't even hilarious it was just...crappy. Although I don't want to completely say 'avoid' I can at least assure you it's better than the 3.8 on IMDb suggests but this probably isn't worth running out to add to your bad movie collection.

Think About It!

-Locke