Cyber Bandits

A good deal of scenic travelogue footage fixes the location in this futuristic affair as being an unidentified but exotic Asian island, ipso facto ruled by a villainous technology mogul, Morgan Wells, played in his best deadpan manner by Robert Hays, who has financed development of a preposterous weapon that is engineered to translocate the minds of its outer directed human targets into a permanent condition of virtual reality. Wells' mistress, Rebecca (Alexandra Paul), weary of his harsh treatment of her, steals a CD-ROM which contains encrypted data requisite for the weapon's implementation, with the hope of capitalizing her escape and freedom but understands she will not be able to achieve her objective alone, thereby luring naive Jack Morris (Martin Kemp), navigator aboard the tycoon's yacht, to aid her in her flight. Jack and his Cockney shipmate Manny (Adam Ant) have their shore leave interrupted by Rebecca's plans, particularly so since Morris permits feelings of compassion to bring him into a romantic involvement with the waifish temptress, who induces him into having the stolen data tattooed upon his back within a dragon-like design, and soon Wells and an opposition troupe are literally after Jack's hide (the original title was Sailor's Tattoo). The comic book background of scriptor James Robinson is easily visible throughout this low budget film as there is but meagre development of his characters, and neophtye director Erik Fleming is not yet adept in the craft of pacing, but there are scintillas of wit, and savoury acting turns from James Hong and from Hays as a wryly devilish Wells.

An evil billionaire develops a weapon that will entrap its victims in a catatonic state of virtual reality. His girlfriend steals the disk (back when DVD discs were considered a big deal) that creates the software for the weapon and amazingly, it's the only copy. She makes friends with a sailor who helps her escape, and they put the software in a tattoo on his back.

Bad acting, bad special effects, Grace Jones. And you all thought she wasn't around after the 80's. Well, apparently she was.

The film does have a copious amount of nudity, although thankfully not the manish-looking leading lady.

As another said, this movie is SOOOOO bad; I just watched it because I loved Robert Hays in Starman (1986). If one ignores Morgan as evil here, he can still imagine him being a similarly heroic character to the one he played in Starman. Martin Kemp (Jack Morris) seems like a guy as similarly nice as Robert Hays, but he is sadly waylaid by this movie's stupid obsession with porn typical in our day of infantile debauched sadistic narcissism that long ago abandoned adulthood. I'll just fantasize about what a wonderful virtuous movie this could have been with Kemp & Hays, like if Henry Gibson had been the bad guy and Kemp & Hays were our heroes who saved the day, for after admiring seeing Hays in virtuous roles like Starman & Incredible Journey, I refuse to accept him in such a degraded role.

It's like the 80's music scene tried to resurrect itself via TV movies. Kemp, Ant and Jones are the victims of this incredibly cheap futuristic version of North by Northwest. Kemp gets involved with a pretty girl, only to be dragged into a plot to design an incredible weapon. This weapon can hold people in a virtual reality prison. We never see these "prisons" as the budget just isn't there. It was a nice idea, especially before the likes of The Matrix etc. But like I said, it's cheap. The acting is terrible, with one of the heavies being less threatening than the elderly Gibson. Some atrocious dialogue does raise the comedy factor, but this is an embarrassment for all involved, and I'm glad I had some laundry to do whilst this played.