Manborg

This film has a quality which allows you to transcend the usual role of audience, and makes you feel like you are with friends, albeit very weird (possibly deranged) friends who have a green screen. Based on those brilliant b-movies of our childhood, Manborg follows the adventures of a group of misfits who are valiantly fighting off the Nazi-vampire hordes from hell. With the likes of Number One Man and Justice on the team, there is never a dull moment. It had me on the edge of my seat throughout, and left me hungry for more. Expect excitement, chaos, unrequited love, science, stop-motion monsters, hover boards and so much more. It is funny, it's fantastic, it is gory and it is glorious. Possibly not for the feint of heart, but definitely one I would recommend (and have been). It's never too late... To be a hero.

Once upon a time, films with heavy red titles, bad electronic music, and zany special effects were all the rage. These would appear on VHS Video in the early 80's,they were totally entertaining, usually made on a shoestring budget,usually badly dubbed and had bad one liners galore. Back to the present day,we have big budgets, we have the technology, but do we still have the imagination? Manborg certainly does! This is a wild,wacky, weird,zany trip back to these days where the only thing that mattered was killing as many pizza faced baddies as you could whilst spouting bad one liners! It's not big budget, but hey, it doesn't have to be, it's non stop mayhem with many laugh out loud moments! Matthew Kennedy is brilliant as Manborg ( "i am Manborg"),Adam Brooks as the ace baddie Count Draculon,for me steals the show..closely followed by "number one man"(Ludwig Lee complete with classic bad dubbing!) This is either "hate it" or "love it" territory...i loved it!!

Manborg feels you're watching the cut scenes from a video game more than you're watching a movie. It's fun, but it feels like there was so much work put into something which inevitably ends up as a lark. Maybe I'm just a party pooper. Or maybe I like when movies are funny because they are just weird or foreign, versus the forced humor that comes when you make a parody or a genre already rife with unintended humor.

That said, this is a real CGI achievement — just watch the extras to see how much of the world was created for the film. Is it a good movie? Well, it's more like an 11-minute Adult Swim show played out for an hour. There's some goofy humor and some slap happy action. That said — going back to my eleven-year-old self, then my answer would be, "Yes, this movie is awesome."

In the all-too bleak future, mankind has been defeated by the armies of hell. Now, the eeevil Draculon (Adam Brooks) and his malevolent minions rule from a hideous fortress-city.

Enter MANBORG (Matthew Kennedy), a cybernetic being, constructed from a soldier and various spare parts. With help from #1 Man (Ludwig Lee), Justice (Conor Sweeney), and his sister, Mina (Meredith Sweeney), MANBORG seeks to destroy Draculon and all he stands for.

Dark, ultra-gory, and absolutely hilarious, this movie takes its low-low-budgeted absurdity seriously, making what could / should have been an abysmal failure into a brilliant spectacle of intentional idiocy! From the Mina-smitten Baron (Jeremy Gillespie), to the Dr. Strangelove-inspired, Dr. Scorpius (Brooks again), and just about every other character / demon / monster / etc., this is insane moviemaking done right!

FAVORITE SCENES: #1- The gladiatorial matches! #2- Any scene with the Baron! #3- Justice and #1 Man making macaroni and cheese! #4- The fabulously fun-tastic, gut-unraveling, skull-exploding final conflict!

Is this movie an homage? Parody? Homarody? Hmmm.

P.S.- Be sure to stick around after the credits for the COMING ATTRACTIONS!...

"Manborg" is a delightfully dopey post-apocalypse flick, played with tongue firmly in cheek. The guys keeping cheesy Bs like these alive are the Canadian collective "Astron-6", who are also responsible for "Father's Day" and "The Editor". In the world of the future, humans have been fighting the armies of Hell for some time, and are losing the war, although some people refuse to give up the fight. Matthew Kennedy plays an unnamed soldier who dies during battle, and is reincarnated as the half-machine "Manborg". He hooks up with three other warriors: feisty Mina (Meredith Sweeney), Australian-accented chatterbox "Justice" (Conor Sweeney), and the truly hilarious # 1 Man (Ludwig Lee / voice of Kyle Hebert).

Although it's not meant to be taken seriously, one has to admire some of the actors for playing it straight, which is the right way to play this sort of material in the first place. The whole thing is a marvel of visual design; it often looks like a video game. It's been stylized to a great degree by director / producer / editor / effects artist / actor Steven Kostanski, and does have an agreeable sense of humour. One of the baddies is a goon named The Baron (Jeremy Gillespie), who pines after the adorably cute Mina.

There's not a particularly big story to tell here, but that's not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to make the movie clock in at barely over an hour. (On the DVD, a promo for an Astron-6 short called "Bio Cop", and a priceless spoof of those FBI warnings on tapes and discs, helps add to the running time.)

The biggest laughs come from Hebert, a riot as the voice of # 1 Man. Adam Brooks (as the primary villain Count Draculon, and the scientist Dr. Scorpius), and Andrea Karr (as a hench woman named Shadow Mega), co-star, and they, like everybody else, play this for everything that it's worth.

The ending is rather abrupt, but in a mindless, gory, funny little diversion like this, that's not such a big issue.

Filmed in my hometown!

Seven out of 10.