"He's the First Hero of the 21st Century...And He's Our Only Hope." Cue a post apocalyptic future, Van Damme and his mission to ensure a Cyborg with critical scientific information ends up in the right hands.
Van Damme has always spoke very candidly about his early film output, he says it's not rocket science, as he got more famous the budgets got bigger and the films got better because of it. Which of course isn't saying much to non fans of the ass kicking Muscles from Brussells. But on a basic action movie level, many Van Damme movies score highly with the popcorn munching crowd, and if the haters want to admit it or not, the choreography and sheer athleticism is truly a sight to behold.
Cyborg, however, is a bad film, it has some worth to the undemanding genre fan, but it's cheap in production and finds Van Damme ill at ease at the time making a film away from the comfort of the ring/fight format (he had looked well at home in Bloodsport the year previously and also in the undervalued Kickboxer released in tandem with Cyborg). The plot is lacking cohesion and director Albert Pyun decides to just lurch from one action set piece to another without a care in the world for structure or narrative thrust. Quite often the action scenes are accompanied by groaningly bad synthesiser music, and there is slow-mo as well, slow, sleepy, tired looking slow-mo. There's decent colour photography and Vincent Klyn's roaring villain is one of the more nasty Van Damme foes from the early part of his career. But really, once we get to the "Christ" metaphor even Van Damme's fans realise they should have rented Kickboxer instead. Fun character names, mind, makes us think of a rock concert! 3/10
Van Damme has always spoke very candidly about his early film output, he says it's not rocket science, as he got more famous the budgets got bigger and the films got better because of it. Which of course isn't saying much to non fans of the ass kicking Muscles from Brussells. But on a basic action movie level, many Van Damme movies score highly with the popcorn munching crowd, and if the haters want to admit it or not, the choreography and sheer athleticism is truly a sight to behold.
Cyborg, however, is a bad film, it has some worth to the undemanding genre fan, but it's cheap in production and finds Van Damme ill at ease at the time making a film away from the comfort of the ring/fight format (he had looked well at home in Bloodsport the year previously and also in the undervalued Kickboxer released in tandem with Cyborg). The plot is lacking cohesion and director Albert Pyun decides to just lurch from one action set piece to another without a care in the world for structure or narrative thrust. Quite often the action scenes are accompanied by groaningly bad synthesiser music, and there is slow-mo as well, slow, sleepy, tired looking slow-mo. There's decent colour photography and Vincent Klyn's roaring villain is one of the more nasty Van Damme foes from the early part of his career. But really, once we get to the "Christ" metaphor even Van Damme's fans realise they should have rented Kickboxer instead. Fun character names, mind, makes us think of a rock concert! 3/10