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.

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

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.

Well if your like me and you love these cheap martial arts/Sci-fi films made in the mid 90's when the Karate film genre was big then this is no exception. David Bradley (king of TV movies) is the hero in this one and he has to try and rescue his brother from, believe it or not none other than John Rhys-Davies. His accent is very bad i'm not sure if its a poor british accent or an African one. The highlight of the film is that Bradley wears a massive black leather Bum Bag (or fanny Pack) throughout the film and never takes it off even when hes fighting! He co ordinates this fine piece of clothing with a gold belt. The fighting isn't too bad and the action is ok. I would recommend buying it for a bit of fun.