GetPapa Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

Sammy-Jo Cervantes There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Mehdi Hoffman There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

adonis98-743-186503 A martial artist hunts a killer in a plague-infested urban dump of the future. Cyborg is a super cool late 80's action movie starring the great Jean Claude Van Damme but also Vincent Klyn made for a terrific and pretty scary looking villain. The movie is kind of a Mad Max meets Terminator kind of movie but of course it's nowhere near as great as those movies but on it's own ? Cyborg is a whole lotta fun with terrific action, lot's of martial arts sequences and even Van Damme getting cruficied but also going toe to toe in a rain fight sequence. (10/10)

Michael_Elliott Cyborg (1989) ** (out of 4)Set in a post-apocalyptic future, martial arts expert Gibson (Jean-Claude Van Damme) heads off to seek vengeance against a brutal leader (Vincent Klyn) who did something ghastly in his past. Along the way Gibson teams up with a young woman (Deobrah Richter) who is seeking her own justice.If you're a fan of Cannon then you know that they delivered some of the cheapest yet most entertaining genre films of the 1980s. This is the place where the likes of Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris were allowed to continue their careers as well as a place where several newbies got their big break. BLOODSPORT introduced the world to Van Damme but it was CYBORG, which got him onto even more screens and started his reign of action films.As far as this film goes, in all honesty it's pretty unoriginal from start to finish. In fact, this genre was pretty much on its dying days with the only new thing being introduced here was the type of martial arts that Van Damme was an expert at. After MAD MAX there were all sorts of low-budget films that were set in the future and a lot of them were exactly like this one with a rogue hero going up against an evil ruler over some sort of revenge.While the story might be weak and the backstory with Van Damme's family leading to more yawns that drama, there's still some fun to be had with the film. I thought the look of the movie was quite good considering the budget. I also thought the action scenes were entertaining enough for what they were. There's no question that Van Damme was a beast for the senses as his style of action was a lot of fun and what he managed to do with his body was quite amazing. Klyn makes for a good villain and Richter is certainly easy on the eyes.If you're a fan of low-budget madness from Cannon then CYBORG is certainly worth watching even though it's not one of their better films.

jimbo-53-186511 Gibson Rickenbacker (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is a bodyguard who, as part of his duties, protects Pearl Prophet (Dayle Haddon) from being attacked. Rickenbacker strikes up a conversation with Prophet and discovers that she is a cyborg that has been sent from Atlanta to gather data on a deadly plague. Prophet needs to get the data back to Atlanta and believes that scientists in Atlanta may be able to find a cure for the plague based on the data she has collected. However, when a group of pirates led by the notorious Fender Tremolo (Vincent Klyn) learn of the data that Prophet has gathered they kidnap her with the intention of taking her to Atlanta in order to use the data for their own evil purposes. Rickenbacker now finds himself having to save Prophet and also make sure that she gets back to Atlanta.I'll say something for this film and that is that it does, at least on the surface, have more intelligence than your average JCVD film. The idea of a deadly plague wiping out civilisation with one person potentially finding a cure is certainly something that should work on paper. Sadly though Cyborg just doesn't have enough flesh on its narrative bones....It's all well and good coming up with an interesting concept but to then expand upon this concept to create an engrossing and rewarding cinematic experience is something else entirely and this really is where Cyborg fails....Yes we're told that there is a deadly plague but the details of the plague are pretty much kept a secret. Why we're not privy to more information about the plague is something that only the filmmakers can answer? The fact that we're given so little information about the plague means that it does become a hard film to care about. This in turn has a knock on effect with other aspects of the story such as Rickenbacker's flashbacks. Whilst these flashbacks presumably exist to give a bit of depth to his character they seemed to be clumsily thrown in and seem almost at odds with the rest of the film. We're given a lot of development to one character, but no real development to the story??? Hmmm... just seemed a bit strange to me. The flashbacks are good at first, but become tiresome when you realise what little purpose they are actually serving....We all know that JCVD films suffer somewhat in the acting department, but the performances in this film are just beyond the pale. Klyn is a good physical presence but he's so cartoonish here that it just becomes impossible to take him seriously. Was that his actual voice or was it dubbed?? Either way it sounded awful and I found myself laughing whenever he was on screen. The rest of the cast are pretty much the same with either some trying too hard or not trying at all. The ridiculous performances actually clash with the serious story that is attempting to be told and ultimately undermine the whole film.Cyborg is a terrible film and unlike many other JCVD films it isn't even terrible in a way that is entertaining. One or two good fight scenes are not enough to save this film and I personally feel that everyone involved with this mess should be ashamed of themselves.

Fluke_Skywalker The basic components for a serviceable 'Mad Max' rip-off are all here, but the story is so listless and the pacing so slack--even at 85 minutes--that it totally undermines the film's relative strengths.Van Damme may not exactly be Brando, but he normally has an easy charm that buoys even his worst films. Not so here, as JC is asked to be a brooding anti-hero. This robs the film of its greatest asset right off the bat. The rest of the cast mostly just growl. So much so that *my* throat was sore by the end.Schlockmaster Albert Puyn does do a decent job of creating his post-apocalyptic world on a shoestring budget, and there are a couple of solid moments (the flashbacks that set up the history between JC and the villain, a fight in an abandoned factory) and some great shots (JC suspended above a toadie by doing the splits between two walls) but none of it is enough to save this tedious dreck.