Cyborg Cop

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!

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.

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)

My friends make fun of me because I like movies just like this one. It's bad and I'm talkin' realy bad. The type of movie that only gets shown late at night on cable. The basic premise is that a cop gets a call from his brother and he goes to help him. He gets there and lots of fights take place. Without saying the ending (do I even have to) that is pretty much the whole film. I really like John Rhyes-Davie, so this film is not a total waste. Alright maybe it is, but its fun to watch. I wonder if Davies even admits to being in this movie? I wouldn't. Even after all that I still like this movie. It's fun because it is so formulaic that every single scene can be determined before it happens. This movie should only be watched by people who like cheezy movies and the five or six hardcore John Rhyse-Davis fans from around the world. All others stay away!!!!!

I was not expecting much, I knew it would be cheesy and that it was a movie not to be taken seriously. However, I am not entirely sure what to make of Cyborg Cop. The acting I didn't think was too bad, I like John Rhys Davies and he is good value as the villain. Rufus Swart is also fun, and while over-the-top at times David Bradley's performance is hardly bland either. The story is derivative and holds few surprises but I never found it dull really, and the soundtrack is decent. However, Alonna Shaw is rather annoying, and the editing especially in the action sequences, of which I have seen worse but generally unexciting, is choppy. The script is uneven to me, Kessel has some fun lines but a lot of it verges on unintentionally cheesy, the ending is stupid to say the least and the characters are rather stock with not much done with the titular character to make him interesting. In conclusion, I don't consider it a great movie but I can think of much worse, if anything I'm very neutral on Cyborg Cop. 5/10 Bethany Cox