Cyborg Cop

Looking at the title I thought that it would be okay. Sadly it failed a bit and the only reason is that it looks cheaply done and the effects used, if we can say effects, are laughable. The cyborg itself just looked ridiculous. Easy to spot that it just was a rubber suit. And just look at his feet, also a rubber shoe. It was also Rufus Swart last role in the business here as a cyborg just coming from the gem Dust Devil (1992).

Coming from Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981) John Rhys-Davies was casted in low budgets just before his second breakthrough in The Lord Of The Rings (2001). I have to say that the acting of all was mediocre but was surprised that it contained a few nudity shots, one gratuitous by slaves working in a fabric topless. Unbelievable. The other nudity came from Alonna Shaw here as Cathy. She never made it into the business, this also being her last flick before she appeared in two episodes in two series.

The only effect worth noticing is the replacement of a real arm into a cyborg arm. And here and there there are a few nasty shots like a slashing and the cyborg smashing his fist through a head.

Jack Ryan, the main lead was played by David Bradley who became notorious after his role in American Ninja. He came back for the main lead in Cyborg Cop 2 (1994) but also failed after wards and stopped in 1997. Sam Firstenberg, the director also came from the American Ninja flicks and tried to pick in on the Cyborg success and the Terminator flicks.

It do has a kind of Robocop (1987) feeling but as I told before. It has a cheap look. Worth watching for a few shots and scenes but only for the B-flick fans.

Gore 1/5 Nudity 1,5/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

This film begins with a DEA agent named "Jack Ryan" (David Bradley) and his brother "Phillip Ryan" (Todd Jensen) cornering a suspect in an abandoned building where he has taken a young woman as a hostage. Although warned by his brother to wait for a SWAT team in accordance with police protocol Jack decides to act immediately and shoots and kills the man instead. It then turns out that this particular person was the son of a very prominent newspaper owner and as a result the resulting bad press leaves a black mark on Jack's record which causes him to resign from the DEA. But rather than simply living a peaceful life afterward Jack gets a package from Phillip telling him that he is in trouble on the Caribbean island of St. Keith and needs his help. What Jack doesn't realize is that Phillip has been captured and a rich drug lord by the name of "Kessel" (John Rhys-Davies) has had him turned into a cyborg who will obey his every command. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that although it had an interesting plot and plenty of pyrotechnics the action scenes seemed too artificial and at times the acting was equally insufficient. That's not to say that this film was necessarily bad but it definitely needed a bit more polish and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

I bought this on DVD for £1 after me and a friend of mine were having a season of watching really lame films, and I have to say, this is very possibly the most unintentionally funny film I have ever seen in my whole life. I don't know what the hell Sam Firstenberg was smoking when he made it, but whatever it was seems to have totally affected his ability to shout "Cut!" as there are so many scenes that left me wondering why the hell they didn't just go back and refilm them. And the editing is atrociously bad. Look carefully during the scene where David Bradley's character is assaulting the house on his motorbike. He jumps off the bike, and shoots twice at a couple of guys, one on the roof, and one on a balcony. Count them, he fires two shots. So then why, inexplicably, does a third man roll down the stairs immediately after, clearly having been shot? It was this kind of total sloppiness that made the film so enjoyable, yet baffling, as they obviously had a decent enough size budget to hire helicopters and blow the hell out of everything, yet not enough to edit the damn thing right...

Other unintentionally comic moments are: "Quincy" the Cyborg (Yes, Quincy...) trying to smash through the door in the morgue but nearly knocking himself out as only the top half of the door crumples (my favourite bit. Watch it in slo-mo...).

Quincy getting electrocuted and walking into a wall.

Quincy's hand-knife-glove-fingers.

Quincy, the most advanced robot cyborg in the world deciding the best way to kill the president during the demonstration is to dive through the windscreen headfirst and catch fire.

David Bradley doing a spinning kick and kicking no-one in the face in the fight outside the bar.

David Bradley disarming a guard, then spinning round on the spot for no reason before shooting him.

David Bradley's lame attempts to distract the police officers in the car before he snatches the gun.

David Bradley's Bumbag.

David Bradley.

Todd Jensen's "Philip" cyborg, and his wholly inappropriate cyborg voice. Coupled with a hilarious penchant for repeating words for no reason, such as, John Rhys-Davies: "this is the bank"...

Philip: "BANK"...

Put simply, if you haven't seen this movie, hunt it down. It is utterly hilarious, for all the wrong reasons. 10 out of 10.

CYBORG COP is an entertaining low-rent beat 'em up with a sci-fi twist. It's a classic piece of B-movie fare, featuring all the usual elements we've come to expect (and love) from our cult films: a muscled, posturing hero (David Bradley), a slumming British actor playing the villain (John Rhys-Davies, who should know better), locations standing in for elsewhere (here, South Africa is meant to be the Caribbean), awful effects (the robot suits are something else), plentiful action, a gratuitous sex scene (featuring DOUBLE IMPACT's pneumatic starlet, Alonna Shaw) and terrible script.

The story has hints of ROBOCOP but those expecting to see a robot dishing out justice on the streets, as the title would imply, are in for disappointment: the cyborg cop of the title is a supporting character who never gets to go out on the beat. Instead, this is a standard revenge format, with the lead character (Jack Ryan, not the Tom Clancy one) tracking the villain to his lair to rescue his kidnapped sibling. Bradley's acting is pants, but he gets to show off his martial arts skills in a series of low budgeted but highly enjoyable action scenes which involve plentiful destruction and mayhem.

The movie has a decent director in the form of Sam Firstenberg, whose REVENGE OF THE NINJA is still my favourite ninja movie; CYBORG COP doesn't reach those highs, but it is a lot of fun. The combination of cheesy effects, cheesier one-liners, shoehorned-in nudity and diabolical acting (Rhys-Davies repeatedly slips into a broad Yorkshire accent for some reason) make this a heady brew that cult fans will find difficult to turn down!

David Bradley stars as Jack Ryan, a kickboxing special agent who travels to some third world country to save his Rambo-like brother from a mad scientist trying to create an army of robots, helping him is a female reporter. David Bradley is about as good as he ever gets and the movie has some decent special effects and some fun action sequences which make the movie modestly watchable. However this movie lacks the crisp action of Bradley's best effort Hard Justice and the intriguing plot angles of Total Reality and instead this movie works as one of Bradley's better movies. Though it's only for genre fans. John Rhys Davies makes a great cheeseball villain and Double Impact's Alonna Shaw is easy on the eyes and frankly that's all I needed to get me over the film's mindless premise and routine script.

* * out of 4-(Fair)