Cyborg (1989)

★★½
Mathematics teaches us that two negatives make a positive, but such a concept doesn’t apply to film very often. In the case of Cyborg, those two negatives are Cannon Pictures and Albert Pyun. The former was a 1980s production company with a wildly varied output, ranging from near greatness (Runaway Train) to laughable action (Invasion U.S.A.). The latter is an action movie director who had some success with theatrical releases, but was mostly confined to direct-to-video nonsense. With track records like these, it’s a wonder that Cyborg turns out to be pretty decent.

In 21st century Earth, a plague reduced society to anarchy. Those who survive have to live under the threat of roaming gangs. Gibson (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is a homeless freelance bodyguard (here called slingers) on the trail of Fender (Vincent Klyn), a rugged gang leader with a blank stare and animalistic voice. Many years prior, Fender killed Gibson’s surrogate family, and he’s been aching for revenge ever since. In a crumbling New York City, Gibson runs into Pearl Prophet (Dayle Haddon), a cyborg trying to return to Atlanta with a cure for the plague. Fender kidnaps her because he wants the cure for himself. Gibson wants Fender because he wants revenge. Pearl is more or less caught in the middle. Gibson sees her eventual rescue as an added bonus. In reality, she’s not his priority.

He receives some help in Nady (Deborah Richter), a survivor of one of Fender’s raids. She learns that Pearl has the cure for the plague stored in her circuitry, so she tags along with Gibson, who sees her as an annoyance at first before finally accepting her partnership. The film tap dances around a potential romantic entanglement between the two, which is just as well considering that Van Damme has little dialogue.

This is a very ugly movie, but considering the events that brought about this world in the first place, it’s not too far-fetched. The production design team consisted of people who threw garbage everywhere, and the crew shot scenes at decayed buildings. Appropriate, really, if you wanted to create a society in which technology is no longer progressing and plumbing is nonexistent. The settings look like the halfway point between the barren wastelands of The Road Warrior and the nuclear horrors of The Terminator.

When shooting martial arts scenes, Pyun likes to place multiple cameras at various angles, so that he can capture the action from different points of view and edit the footage together to give the impression of multiple punches and kicks. (He did this to a higher degree in Bloodmatch.) This has the effect of making his fight scenes appear more brutal than they really are. It’s an effective technique if not overdone. It is this carnage that makes the film more exciting. Instead of a disposable martial arts movie, Cyborg comes across as somewhat redeemed. It's like watching a high-octane ballet.

Most people will get absolutely nothing from this movie. The acting is stale, the plot is thin and some of the special effects (the opening matte painting of N.Y.C. in particular) are laughable. However, there’s some imagination brewing underneath the surface, and Van Damme’s athleticism is on full display. His thick accent is impenetrable at times, but that was a frequent occurrence in his early pictures. That said, his job here is to kick a few heads. Albert Pyun’s camera took care of the rest.

© 2005 Silver Screen Reviews