Cyborg

Cyborg

In the pantheon of muscle bound meathead leading men Van Damme was once king. Those days are long over, but for one fleeting moment the man could do no wrong. You got a script about a man traveling on foot across a post apocalyptic wasteland trying to get a half robot to (insert city here) so they can give the data needed to make a cure for some mystery affliction and get life back in order. Oh but you say that there’s a madman chasing the man because he LOVES the death and destruction. Shit, sounds like a winner to me. GREENLIGHT!


Executive Koala says "MAKE IT HAPPEN"

Congratulations, you just made Cyborg Starring Jean Claude Van Damme (couldn’t he have shortened that?) and a dude who looks creepily like my 3rd grade bus driver. The villain is seriously insane looking; he’s got these nasty dreads that he keeps in a ponytail, but they don’t actually start TIL the ponytail. So we got dirty extensions guy who wears 80’s baseball player wrap around glasses and chain mail for some reason. He looks like he’s always ready for some half-elf fighter/thief to pounce on him with his +4 dagger of invulnerability (god that sounded nerdy...meh whatever).


Ready for those pesky Orcs and slingers

The basic story for cyborg is pretty much what I mentioned above. Van Damme plays a “slinger”(I guess that’s what they call a person with no job, no discernable way of survival, but carries a huge fucking knife) who is “hired” by the half robot/ half woman cyborg (hence the title) with a bad wig to protect her till she gets to..uh, some city. The city doesn’t really matter; it seems to be a very minor plot point even though it’s supposed to be the MAIN PLOT POINT! Van Damme, apparently not being very good at his supposed job loses her and then spends the rest of the movie playing catch up with a chick with the single worst boob job I’ve seen in ages who decides to tag along because she wants to make sure the chick is safe.


A practical guide for recognizing your slingers: Chatpter one - BIG FUCKING KNIFE

Here’s the thing, whoever wrote this half robot/ half turd (I call it a turdborg) must have been a guitar-obsessed freak. Van Damme’s name in the film is, get this, GIBSON RICKENBACKER! So he’s not named after one, but TWO guitars and the villain is named Fender Tremolo(the only way that name could have gotten worse is if it were Stratocaster). These are names you’d almost expect in Six String Samurai, had it not been a significantly classier action flick. But this is not a classy flick so we get Gibson v. Fender in a fight to the death. And believe you me they fight to the death.


Ladies and gentleman, the writer of Cyborg...makes a lot of sense now

Cyborg actually isn’t that bad as far as Van Damme films are concerned, but the premise, story and acting are sub-par at best and laughable at worst. This is the kind of film you’d watch with a bunch of friends and take a shot every time Van Damme mispronounces a word, looks unnecessarily pensive or makes a silly face while fighting. Make sure you have multiple bottles on hand because drinking will be done. It seems like a film that would be better drunk. Maybe I’ll try that one of these days and let you know.


I told you he was bad at his job, who gets crucified their first week?!

Till next time, Drink up…I’ve got movies to watch

-Moe

7 out of 10