In a career absolutely jam packed with dystopian futures, marauding robots and probably more crucifixions than are strictly necessary, the indomitable Albert Pyun made it his mission in life to fill up the screen with as many creaky, cheap-jack, sci-fi thrillers as he possibly could. But in a filmography that includes the surprisingly nightmarish fantasy film The Sword And The Sorcerer, the stunningly flimsy 1991 Captain America and the pre-Matrix Nemesis series that simply wouldn’t die, arguably his most famous effort is the Jean Claude Van Damme sci-fi high kicker, Cyborg.
By this point in the burgeoning career of the Muscles From Brussels, he’d mostly only appeared in martial arts movies that took place in a tournament setting, so a shift into science fiction, so seeing JCVD take the plunge into another genre was probably something of a wise move. I mean, I say probably, because appearing in an Albert Pyun movie was no real guarantee or measure of sucess…
As a global plague catchily titled the Living Death pole axes civilisation, the United States has become a thrift shop version of the Mad Max franchise with rampaging barbarians kitted out with big-ass blades and even bigger shoulder pads running rampant everywhere. In this world where death is an hourly occurrence and the national pastime seems to be sitting around while sharpening knives, mercenaries known as “Slingers” take payment to escort people out of the war torn cities in order to start new lives and one such merc is the haunted Gibson Rickenbacker (no, really – that’s his name). While he goes about his business, he stumbles across Pearl, a Cyborg on a mercy mission to get back to Atlanta in order to deliver a cure for the plague to the CDC, who pleads with Gibson to help her complete her mission.
However a rather sizable road block stands in their way in the shape of the mountainous Fender Tremolo, a despotic leader of a gang of pirates who wants to escort Pearl to Atlanta himself in order to ensure he can accumulate more power and keep this shitty future exactly the way he likes it.
With Pearl in Fender’s clutches, Gibson vows to track him down and kill him in order to get some long awaited revenge for a past atrocity while seemingly disinterested in the future of mankind – but idealistic hanger on, Nady, joins his quest hoping to rescue Pearl and save humanity. From there it’s a long string of fights, scuffles and sacrifices as Gibson attempts to finish his long standing beef with his Nemesis once and for all – but seeing as Fender is build as sturdy as a concrete buffalo and has a killer instinct that practically makes murder as casual as chewing gum, how can our hero possibly hope to win?
Roundhouse kicks all round, then.
I feel that in the grand scheme of things, many of the facts that surround the making Cyborg are far more entertaining and dramatic as the movie itself, but as this low rent affair obviously has its devout fans who grew up with its shaky charms, I’d happily conceade that it’s actually fairly significant considering the Hollywood turmoil that surrounded it. You see, Cyborg was one of the last entries of a floundering Cannon Group whose wayward business practices and dependence on both Chucks Norris and Bronson finally caught up with them as bankruptcy loomed. In fact, things had gotten so bad that upcoming tentpole movies such as a Masters Of The Universe sequel and a Spider-Man adaptation were scrapped despite two million dollars worth of costumes and sets already being built for the former. In order to recoup some desperately needed funds, head honchos Menahem Goram and Yoram Globus decreed that a new film had to be created on the fly and utilise the waiting sets and costumes and after a solid weekend of writing, Pyun had the world of Cyborg ready to go.
To be honest, it fucking shows, and the whole film feels about as seat-of-your-pants, made-up-as-they-went-along as it gets with clunky exposition colliding messily with extended fight scenes that genuinely look like they were thought up in the day as Pyun cuts vast amounts of corners in order to ensure that the venture wasn’t Cannon’s last stand.
However, that’s exactly what it was and the expensive writing was already on the wall as the production company soon folded in on itself like a defective deckchair. However even if Cyborg often feels like it’s film made for thirteen year olds by thirteen year olds (the majority of the characters are named after guitars and other brands of musical instruments – I mean, Gibson Rickenbacker? C’mon), there’s a certain idiotic, video game style charm about the film that wins through that managed to enthrall a generation of kids desperate to see Van Damme do his thing despite Pyun’s inability to maintain a consistent tone, pace or any sort of stakes.
Back in 1986 John McTiernan famously surrounded Arnold Schwarzenegger with capable actors on the set of Predator in order to force him to up his game, however, on Cyborg, Albert Pyun was bold enough to do the complete opposite and surround his lead with actors so shit, JCVD looks like Alan fucking Rickman by comparison. Vincent Klyn’s imposing, shades wearing Fender may be built like a towering, muscled oak, but his acting is twice as wooden and his funky, blue contact lenses does just as much villainous heavy lifting as his sculpted biceps. However, chances are you’ll be too busy chuckling at the wig JCVD is forced to wear during the flashback scenes as he tries to raise an adopted – yet typically doomed – family, or the fact that Pearl being the titular cyborg doesn’t have actually anything to do with the plot whatever and genuinely seems crowbarred in purely to earn that memorable title.
And yet, you can tell that this movie lit a fire under Pyun in ways that reverberated throughout his entire career as he indulges himself in his own weird trope of having his lead nailed up on a cross at some point (Passion Of The Claude, anyone?) while also delving into the world of AI populated dystopias that soon became his obsession.
Anyone watching Cyborg now may be utterly flummoxed at the cult following it eventually got, but back in the heady days of the late 80s, teens would virtually give their right arm to watch the likes of Van Damme concuss the living shit out of a patiently waiting villain with his twirling feet. More than that, the movie managed to move him from his usual type of actioner into a whole new genre which would have seemed even more like martial arts flavoured cat nip to undemanding, underage audiences who could care less if the plot made about as much sense as a chimp’s memoirs.
Is Cyborg a good film? Absolutely not, but as a final footnote in the enjoyably chaotic history of Cannon, the sight of knife wielding JCVD doing the splits above an unsuspecting thug was worth its weight in gold for undemanding audiences high on sugar and sci-fi bullshit.
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