Cyborg Cop II

If there's a way to enjoy this film it would have to be in a so bad it's good way. Early on there is a line from Morgan Hunter, who plays the lead villain in which he calls an average sized guy a fatty. Clearly the script called for someone fat but at some point the role was recast but the line was unchanged, just one example of many of what this film has to offer. The main drawback of enjoying the film in an ironic way is the best performance comes for Hunter who hams it up, but much like Ryan Reynolds in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, after his transformation he loses his personality for most of the film except at the very end.

I did not have the pleasure of watching the first Cyborg Cop, so I am confused about what was going on honestly. The main character was not a cyborg or technically a cop and when he saw the cyborgs they baffled him making me wonder what the heck happened in the first film? Was the thing just called Cyborg Cop for no reason or did the main guy here simply forget he fought cyborgs or what? I guess I should not delve too deeply into it, because what can one expect from a film where a cyborg gets hit point blank with a shotgun and barely moves a muscle and then seconds later gets lightly kicked by the hero and flies like he got hit by a train?

So, the story starts out blazing! Seriously, the first portion of this film was rather rocking, there were no cyborgs and no cops just a strange bevy of dudes with guns on a truck shooting other guys while topless women and men worked on drugs. I've seen this before in films, they have to be topless to ensure quality or some crap, but you know this is a Hollywood invention to add some boobs to the film as if the drugs were that delicate the women would be wearing hairnets and there would be no pants either. The hero from the first film enters the scene and my first thought, "Why is he wearing a fanny pack?" It's a big one too! A guy gets killed, the main killer apprehended and the guy who was kill has a wife also sporting a big ass fanny pack. With a film like this, the next natural order of things is for the villain to be turned into a cyborg because that always works out and soon the cyborg and his buddies start terrorizing the countryside. I mean that literally, they like run amok at a gas station in the country.

The film had something going during the first portion, but just lost it. The hero guy just does not look heroic to me. Not only does he have a fanny pack he looks like Robert Hays dressed as Eric Bishoff circa 1996. The bad guy as a cyborg talks incoherently then when his old nemesis is seen he talks the same as he used to. For some reason the hero and the woman who has these super weapons that blow the cyborgs up easily plant bombs at a nuclear power plant, why? I mean, one shot from the weapons they were using and the cyborgs were dust, but hey lets save them for later!

So it started off good enough, good enough for a cheesy B movie, but then it just lost it. It does make me wonder what the first film was about and see if it had a cyborg cop or if it didn't. It is obvious the main guy is not a cyborg, so was he just fighting another cyborg that was bad and so never really was a cop or what. The villain here was a much better villain when he was not a cyborg, I mean, the hero pummeled the crap out of the guy and he still kept going, he lost his spark after being turned into a cyborg though he still had his dreams. He literally said first he was going to take control of a city then he would start taking over countries. Dare to dream I say!

By all rights, CYBORG COP 2 should be a piece of trash and by all rights, it is. A cheap and cheerful rip-off of better sci-fi films (in particular TERMINATOR 2, with which it shares many stylistic similarities), it's made without an ounce of originality and yet plenty of enthusiasm, to the degree that it actually turns out to be entertaining to watch. Yes, it's a piece of trash through and through, but it's entertaining trash – and I'll take entertaining trash over a boring blockbuster any day of the week.

The plot is unconnected to the first film, and one again there are no cybernetic cops, although we do get low-rent action man David Bradley returning as the hero. This time around he's up against a villain clearly influenced by ROBOCOP's Clarence Boddiker, and there's an absolute ton of action thrown in along the way as he battles an army of unstoppable cyborgs. I don't know where Firstenberg got his budget, but the movie is chock full of cheesy fight scenes and endless explosions; barely a minute goes by without extras being gunned down in slow motion by the robotic army.

Some aspects of the production are intensely irritating, like the endless and moronic musical score, played on an organ for the most part, which really saps life from many of the scenes. The editing is pretty dodgy too with a couple of shots transposed and most of the action filmed in a repetitive way. Bradley's acting is terrible as is that of the rest of the cast, although I did gain enjoyment from Morgan Hunter's ultra-hammy bad guy. But this is a movie for trash fans all the way.

With a misleading title (there is no Cyborg Cop, only a criminal "converted" to a Cyborg who escapes and goes on a rampage), a director who doesn't exactly have a clean track record, filmed in a foreign country trying to pass off as USA and a rather low rating on IMDb (although I always prefer to judge for myself), this had all the makings of being completely awful. I did however decide to check it out as the DVD was cheap and it was by NuImage who did an excellent straight to video movie titled Hard Justice the following year. And to my huge surprise, I actually found this to be an enjoyable little cheesefest.

Sure it's campy, it's clichéd and doesn't exactly score high in terms of acting, plot or originality but it's well aware of all those, and with those all taken into account, makes the best of them and comes out smiling. David Bradley, who I've considered to be one of the better "actors" in the B-action genre provides a fun performance. He's well aware of the movie he's in, and makes the most of it. Morgan Hunter as the mobster turned cyborg provides a suitably over the top performance that's a lot of fun to watch.

Certainly, it doesn't let down in terms of action. You'll get plenty of explosions and our hero flying through the air with a pistol in each hand numerous times. Opening with a huge warehouse shootout with a large bodycount and an especially huge explosive scene at a Gas station. Production values are generally above average, only let down by some obvious stunt doubles and blatant modelwork which fortunately doesn't appear on screen for very long. Overall, they're definitely no worse than Commando. It doesn't appear that producers have ever said "No" at any point to what director Sam Firstenberg has asked for, as you'll get several big scale action scenes with tons of stunts and explosions which is rather impressive for such a little known and obviously low budget movie. Embarrassingly, there isn't actually a huge amount which Universal Soldier for example does which this doesn't, which either says a lot of bad things about it or a lot of good things about this, depending on your point of view.

One thing I did notice however was that while the movie is set in the USA, it is quite obviously not filmed there. Where it is I'm not sure, but if you know a thing or two about cars, you'll notice a LOT which aren't sold in the USA such as Fiat's and an exploding Ford Sierra at the gas station scene.

Like a James Bond movie, Cyborg Cop 2 provides the familiar ingredients that fans of B-action movies like to see time and time again. Turn off your brain, grab a few beers and watch and by the end you'll probably have the overblown organ music stuck on your mind for a few days. Yes it's silly, it's clichéd but for what it is, it works.

This is one of those films that gets better as you drink more beer. Great movie to watch with your pack of snarky friends. The Rifftrax version works too if your snarky friends haven't called in sick to avoid another useless staff meeting and you are home alone. It isn't great cinema but it has high fun potential.