#647 – Cyborg (1989)

Cyborg (1989)

Film review #647

Director: Albert Pyun

SYNOPSIS: In the near future, the world has become a post-apocalypse wasteland, and a ruthless gang is terrorising what is left of the United States. A female cyborg is sent to retrieve data from New York City and return it to Detroit in order to finish the development of a cure for a plague that is killing the survivors. She runs into a man who is fighting the leader of the gang, and asks him to escort her to Detroit…

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Cyborg is a 1989 sci-film. Set in the typical post-apocalyptic wasteland of Mad Max ripoffs (and post-nuclear America too, I suppose), a plague is ravaging the survivors, and scientists in Detroit send a cyborg to New York City to get data that can help them complete a cure. While there, a gang tries to capture her so they can control the cure, and she seeks the help of Gibson Rickenbacker to escort her back to Detroit. The whole setup is very typical of this type of film, with the lone lead character who has abandoned his humanity rediscovering it as he is forced to accompany other people on a dangerous quest across the wasteland. There’s nothing that really sets the film apart from the oh so many similar films of the time. There’s some decent action that mostly revolves around Van Damme’s kickboxing expertise, but it’s all fairly par for the course.

In a film where one of the main characters is a cyborg, Van Damme still manages to come off as the last human character: his line delivery is barely audible, and clearly struggling with speaking English at some points. The villain is just your typical unhinged psychopath that doesn’t offer anything interesting, and everyone else is equally as dull. There’s some decent practical effects with the whole cyborg, but nothing too remarkable. The film really fails to embrace its best aspects: the fight scenes, and too much stunted dialogue upsets any sense of pacing. Probably not the worst of these types of movies, but Cyborg fails to really offer anything interesting, and doesn’t capitalise on the few things it does competently.