Cybernator (1991) — Triskaidekafiles

CYBERNATOR

WRITERS: Screenplay by Edward Sanchez and Robert Rundle

DIRECTOR: Robert Rundle

STARRING: Lonnie Schuyler as Brent McCord

Christina Peralta as Blue

Jeff Jenkins as Jim Weaver

James K. Williams as Major Wright

Ed Sanchez as Prof. Mancini

Jack Senior as Capt. Fiefer

William Smith as Col. Peck

QUICK CUT: A cop in the future deals with his inherent racism, and searches inside himself to find his long lost brother.

THE MORGUE

McCord - A cop who hates cyborgs, has a stripper girlfriend, and not much else. He doesn’t play by the rules and aaahh you know the tropes.

Weaver - McCord’s partner, a friendly fellow who is good at attracting laser beams.

Blue - McCord’s girlfriend, a stripper, and always willing to stand by her man, even if that means following him to go hunt down killer deathbots.

Hair - The Cybernator field commander, smart, observant, and with a bit of a biting wit to go with his cruelty.

Peck - The general behind the cybernator program, who decided it was time to do some cleanup.

This is going to be the cyber-nadir of my existence, I’m sure.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Merry Triskmas, everyone! Another year draws to a close, and I hope this Boxing Day finds you all well, and everyone had a safe holiday, and that Satan brought you everything you wanted. As for me, well, last year I did Class of 1999 to wrap up the year, and I thought I would continue the trend with another cheesy cyborg movie; Cybernator! The die is cast!!

We open up with a Senator taking a prostitute back to a hotel room to do some business...and well, I guess it's good to see not much has changed in the world of politics in the next 30 years.

But Senator McGrabass has his fun times disturbed when a gang of cyborgs bust in to ruin his day. And not just with coitus interuptus, but with a spot of murder.

I don't think cybernetics are her only enhancements.

From there, we head over to a strip club, and spend far too much time for this short of a movie, watching a woman dance. But we do get to meet our lead, Detective McCord and his doomed partner Weaver. Spoiler.

And why are we here, besides water skiing and titilation? Why, one of the dancer's, Blue, is McCord's girlfriend. So there's that, at least.

They spy a pair of 'borgies' in the corner, and McCord is botist, and very paranoid. He wonders why they're there, and then notices they've disappeared.

Which one of you motor city mother fuckers wants to bet that this one isn’t??

Meanwhile, we see the cyborgs have snuck backstage, take out a few goons, and are on their way to take out another senator who's busy polling his constituents.

Weaver and McCord hear the gunfire, as does everyone else, and we get a bit of a barroom shootout and some panic. Oh, and plenty of cheesy as hell laser blasts.

Outside, there is ANOTHER senator arriving for a meeting with someone, but he's early. So yeah, ther's SOMEthing going on, and this senator mentions a Project Blackhawk. Before Zinda Blake can show up, he mentions how his dead friends were all against the project, and wanted it shut down.

Spoiler: That's why they're being murdered.

The cyborgs McCord shot in the club are at the morgue, and we get a rundown on them, with the only real notable thing is there is a white substance, probably substitute for blood, which feels like, if 'borgies' are so pervasive in society, this would be something people would know about them?

Also, the medical examiner suspects they are government property, because of reasons.

So the cops go talk to a general friend, and he denies it all because harumph harumph, the army doesn't use ROBOTS!, all their soldiers are HUMANS! Dude, I don't even believe that. All innovation comes from military projects.

We uh, we're not even gonna TRY and make it look like the future, huh?

As they leave, a scientist rushes up to them, tells them he knows what they're looking for, but won't talk here. Instead he suggests, and I shit you not, that they meet in a dark alleyway he knows of later that night. Oh FUCK no! We are not meeting deliberately in an alleyway!!

Their captain tells them not to go to the meeting, and they ignore him anyways, so we find ourselves in that alleyway, where surprise! They get ambushed, and Weaver takes a fatal hit. This time...it's personal!

McCord chases them down through a dark warehouse, as one does, and we get some decent enough fighting for this level of cinema.

Captain 'Hair' reports to his superior officer, fills him in on McCord's interference, and how he seemed to defy the odds in their fight.

The general is pleased by this, as he seems to recognise the description, and that McCord is...like his brother. Oh no. And how come, if he knew the guy's name, was he so hard to find?

McCord heads back to the army general to drunkenly yell at him, and then gets dragged in front of his chief so HE can yell at McCord. Things are going well, I'd say.

He tries to quit, but the chief won't let him, and instead takes him off the case and tells him to take a few days off, and we'll see where we go from there.

Not surprisingly, McCord begins plotting to hunt down those responsible, and Blue tries to convince him not to. Because this is revenge, not justice! And in a breath of refreshing air, McCord is like, Yeah! DUH!

And then we are treated to a sex scene to eat up more time.

I’m sorry, but no cyborg would be that furry.

So Blue tags along, they break into the general's office, and rifle through his files. Because the army has really shit security on this stuff.

They dig through the files, McCord learns what he can, and even finds a file on, gasp surprise, himself. Great, now it's Blade Dummer.

So, somehow, McCord was killed, cybernetically enhanced, LOST, and is somehow more advanced than the rest? Okay sure.

Blue urges him to get out of there before they get caught, and we race down the same flight of stairs like, half a dozen times. Urgh.

It's all for naught though, as the moment they exit the building, some military goons zap him with a cybertaser, and McCord goes down.

Colonel Peck shows up, tries to pull rank on the goons, but they say they only report to General Braddock. Oh, sorry, he's missing in action.

That uh, actually works though, Peck buggers off, and the major takes McCord off somewhere to have a chat and fix him up, and hold Blue hostage so they can blackmail him into taking care of Peck and his cyborgs.

We get some infodumping from Major Exposition, about McCord, his time in the service, what they want, and asks if he's heard of a Cybernator. "No." "It's a secret government project..." THEN HOW WOULD HE KN...oh never mind.

To make a long story short, McCord agrees, as long as Blue is safe, grabs one of the Cybertasers, and goes hunting for their secret lair.

A hunt which takes...all of five minutes. Sigh. Just follow a beeping tracker? That's no fun. Let the detective detect!

He finds their secret lair, breaks in, and mayhem ensues for a bit as he sneaks around like Solid Snake taking them out.

McCord pretty much dispatches with any and all opposition in quick fashion, even sneaking in a nod to Indiana Jones.

Also, for some reason, all the cyborgs are now painted silver, just so you KNOW they're cyborgs, I guess.

But after a looot of silent sneaking around, McCord at last comes face to face with "Hair", and we get an...okay fist fight.

A fist fight that quickly ends when McCord pulls two of his milk tubes and he just stops. Wow. If they are that easy to stop, no wonder the military doesn't bother with them.

So we finally get to the big confrontation between McCord and Peck, who is gasp surprise, the only other Blackhawk in existence and...DID HE JUST SAY, "Yes, tis I!"?? Oh for...

Anyways, the final confrontation is a lot of talky talk, the non-revelation that Peck is his brother, which they do nothing with, and eventually it ends with McCord killing the general.

The movie tries to pull the "we have to stop the humans, they're afraid of us!" card, but it's done so much better in...any other movie.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: This looks pretty meh to me. I’d wager it’s a VHS transfer. The blacks are dull, and everything looks so washed out.

Audio: Aggressively okay.

Sound Bite: “Some of my best friends are toasters.”

Body Count: I will say this about the movie, it has a big pile of bodies.

1- Mimzy gets her throat slit off screen around three minutes in.

2 - Senator gets slit by Razor.

3 and 4 - Two absolutely shite security guards get gunned down.

5 - Hooker gets shotgunned

6 - And then her john

7 - Rando in the club gets blasted

8 - Cyborg gets shot by the cop

9 - And another.

10 - Politician gets blasted

11 - As does his aide.

12 - Scientist gets gunned down

13 - One of the borgs gets killed

14 - Partner gets shot by the borgs

15 - Guy at the dance club gets shot in the face

16 - One of the cyborgs meets an electric fence.

17 - Chubby Colossus gets his neck snapped.

18 - Samuroid gets blasted

19 - Another borg is blasted

20 - And another

21 - The main borg gets his tubes tied

22 - Peck gets run through by McCord

Best Corpse: Sigh. Nothing here really speaks to me. Everyone either falls over from a magic bolt of light, or gets a neck snapped.

Blood Type - F+: There’s a tiny bit of blood here and there, and I think the makeup on Peck is interesting, but it’s hard to tell at this quality.

Sex Appeal: Somehow, no one gets nude at the strip club, but Blue does work blue in the bedroom with McCord.

Drink Up! every time McCord kills a cyborg.

Movie Review: This is pure and simple cheese. No budget, every room looks like cardboard, very indie and simple. But this isn't so much a BAD movie. The acting is occasionally decent to good, but it movie is very much ahead of its time, in the sense it does not have the time or budget to pull off the story it wants to tell in a satisfactory way. And this is not helped by a lot of padding. There’s nothing terribly new here, it’s all been done before, and if this had the money or effects to support it, it would be okay. As it is, it comes off very cheap. Two out of five laser blasts

Entertainment Value: The acting is JUST good enough, and there’s nothing SO bad, although there is a bit of scenery chewing by almost anyone in authority. It’s fun to watch at times. The cyborg designs are good. It wants to be futuristic and just…isn’t, which is hilarious in its way. Like I said, it’s not so much a bad movie, it just didn’t have the resources, and there is fun to be had in this silliness. Three out of five milk tubes.