Cyborg

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Details At A Glance

General		Extras
Category	Action	Theatrical Trailer (1.78:1, not 16x9 Enhanced, Dolby Digital 2.0) Booklet
Rating
Year Released	1989
Running Time	82:30 Minutes (Not 86 Minutes as per packaging)
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Selection then Menu	Cast & Crew
Region	2,4	Director	Albert Pyun
Studio Distributor	Cannon Entertainment Fox Home Video	Starring	Jean-Claude Van Damme Deborah Richter Vincent Klyn Alex Daniels Dayle Haddon
Case	Transparent Amaray	Starring
RPI	$34.95	Music	Kevin Bassinson

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s) French (Dolby Digital 2.0, 192 Kb/s) Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0, 192 Kb/s) Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0, 192 Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.86:1 (Measured)
16x9 Enhancement
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired German Dutch Swedish Finnish Norwegian Danish Portuguese Polish	Annoying Product Placement	No
Subtitles		Action In or After Credits	No

Plot Synopsis

If this doesn't convince Roadshow Home Entertainment to haul their butts and get Mad Max onto our beloved format post-haste, then I guess nothing will. Cyborg is one of a zillion inferior imitations that Mad Max has spawned, with mega-budget clones such as Waterworld proving that having a hundred million dollars doesn't necessarily mean you will make a good film. Indeed, Cyborg is one of the better imitations because it manages to retain the dark, post-industrial feel of the original blueprint. This is faint praise, however, because this is the only thing that Cyborg manages to retain from the film that it is copying. Character development, plot movement, inventiveness, all these things are lost in a sea of dodgy special effects and poor acting. Two supposedly unrelated sequels followed, but where do you begin with a film where the entire budget seems to have been used up on two minutes of special effects shots, and most of the major characters are named after well-known makes and models of guitar? Another interesting fact about this film which reveals how little of the budget went into making something cohesive is the fact that one of the stuntmen sued Jean-Claude Van Damme after he lost the vision in one eye during a fight sequence that went wrong. The stuntman's case rested on the claim that Van Damme was not the expert he claimed to be, and lacked the necessary control for the stunt. What makes the low grade of this film even more apparent is the fact that this stuntman won the lawsuit. Indeed, Leonard Maltin rates this film as a bomb (in capital letters), stating that even for a post-apocalyptic trash film, Cyborg plunges to new depths. In my own family-inherited way of describing films, I would rate this film's plot as being so bad that it becomes good, and then becomes bad all over again, all within the same moment.

Even compared to the plot of Mad Max, Cyborg is staggering in its simplicity. Essentially, the film is set at an unspecified point in the future, where civilization has been reduced to waste by a vicious plague, and only the strong are able to survive in the resultant anarchy. Pearl Prophet (Dayle Haddon) is the cyborg of the film, being an android that has been sent to a city in order to retrieve information that a group of doctors need in order to complete work on a cure for the plague. She is being pursued through the ruins when she encounters Gibson Rickenbacker (Jean-Claude Van Damme), a "slinger" who, as an occupation, kills the modern-day pirates and leads survivors to places where they might be safe. His main nemesis in the film is a rather large, ugly man who goes by the name of Fender Tremolo (Vincent Klyn). Fender wants the cure because it will make him the most powerful man in this decidedly B-grade world, and Gibson wants to stop him solely because Gibson will have to kill Fender in the process. Along the way, Gibson is ably assisted by Nady Simmons (Deborah Richter), a woman with the ugliest pair of breasts I have ever seen exposed, however briefly, on celluloid. In any case, what saves this film from becoming a complete joke like most of the films that are shot with these kinds of production values is that the film promises action, and it is action you get. There is more than enough punching, kicking, shooting, stabbing, and feral yowling to keep fans of B-grade action happy.

To reveal much more about this film's plot would give away what few surprises it actually has (and boy, it needs them real bad), so I will state the plain truth here and make your purchasing decision much easier. You would have to be a fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme, or really bad films, in the highest of high extremes to even consider watching this film more than once, and I would certainly not even think about laying down thirty-five dollars for it.

Transfer Quality

Video

Here at Michael D's, we have specific criteria to follow when we might nominate DVDs for the Hall Of Fame or Hall Of Shame. In the latter case, the film must be presented in a manner that is dramatically sub-par in comparison to how one would expect a film of similar vintage to look. For the first two reels, this film more than meets the criteria for a Hall Of Shame nomination, but after this point, things settle down to a viewable level. Not quite viewable in a pleasant sense of the word, but still viewable if you really need to have this film.

This particular transfer is presented in the measured aspect ratio of 1.86:1, and it is not 16x9 Enhanced. One of the reasons why we must insist on 16x9 Enhanced transfers, as has already been outlined in articles on the site, is that up until the dawn of DVD, such transfers did not exist, and any such transfer has to have been created recently. This particular transfer looks as if it had been created when the film first hit the home rental market, and left in a series of coffee cans to rot for the decade or so between then and now. The transfer is very sharp in the foreground at all times, but backgrounds are often blurry and indistinct to a point that suggests a slight degree of overcompression. Making matters worse is the presence of abundant film grain, which may or may not have been accentuated by the tightness of the compression. Shadow detail is ordinary, although it is usually easy enough to make out which person is which in darker scenes, and there is no low-level noise.

The colour saturation can be described as being true-to-life, with no bleeding or misregistration apparent at any time. The nature of the film lends itself to harsh, lifeless-looking photography, with no real splashes of colour for the film to capture. However, there are occasional scenes when accurate renderings of several different shades of green and blue are needed, and the transfer delivers this without skipping a beat.

MPEG artefacts are not a specific issue with this transfer, although there are many times when the entire picture seems to be on the verge of pixelization. Some of the film grain that is apparent in the transfer is definitely compression-related, as you simply cannot fit an eighty-four minute film with this much grain and film artefacts in it onto a single layer with so many soundtracks and subtitle tracks without something giving. However, there is no evidence of any macro-blocking or motion blur, so the compression is as good as can be expected. Film-to-video artefacts were not apparent in the film at any time, which is a surprise considering how many fine lines and pieces of chrome there are in the picture. Film artefacts pick up the slack for both of the other kinds, with special effects shots of Pearl without her false hair that begin at 6:48 showing copious grain, flecks, scratches, and even a change in contrast from the shots that link them together.

Audio

Thankfully, the soundtrack is in much better shape than the video, although it is still quite ordinary when compared to other transfers of films in this age group that I have seen (Batman being a prominent example). The audio transfer is presented with four audio tracks, the first of these being the original English dialogue in Dolby Digital 2.0 with surround-encoding. Dolby Digital Stereo dubs in French, Italian, and Spanish make up the rest of the audio transfer, but one has to question the wisdom of putting these soundtracks on the disc, given how much strain the compression was already under.

I listened to the English soundtrack, while sampling some of the more ridiculous lines in Spanish during a second viewing for my own gratification. The dialogue is always quite clear above the rest of the soundtrack, but understanding exactly what the actors are saying or grunting is often another matter, and not through any fault of the transfer. The audio sync during the actual dialogue is okay, but during the moments when Jean-Claude Van Damme is howling like a feral cat, it seems to be out by approximately half a second. This, however, is a common fault with all Van Damme films in which he practises his trademark feline mating call, almost always due to the problems it causes with ADR.

The score music is credited to one Kevin Bassinson, and it sounds like more than a film as cruddy as this one really deserves. Much of the score relies on simple progressions on a synthesizer, and it gives some sequences a slight tension where there would otherwise be none. Obviously, we're not going to be in for the sort of inspired scoring we normally associate with the Mad Max series when we sit down to watch this movie, but the music is otherwise one of the best aspects of the film.

The surround channels were used to support ambient sounds and the music, but that was about it. We cannot expect any inspired directional sound effects from a Dolby Pro Logic transfer, but the surrounds really do very little to immerse the viewer in the film. The subwoofer was frequently present to support gunshots, explosions, and the exaggerated sounds of fists and feet hitting flesh.

Extras

While there is really very little I can think of that would make a worthwhile extra for this film, a commentary track would have been nice. A commentary track from the guys behind Mystery Science Theatre 3000 would have been spectacular. Still, the purpose of an extra is to enhance the viewer's enjoyment of the film, and it is very hard to enhance something that has very little chance of being there in the first place.

Theatrical Trailer (1:29)

Presented in the aspect ratio of 1.85:1, with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound, this trailer is not 16x9 Enhanced. Telecine wobble is evident from start to finish, and the only thing this trailer doesn't manage to give away in eighty-nine seconds is how the film ends.

R4 vs R1

From what I was able to find out, it appears that the Region 4 and Region 1 versions of this disc are fundamentally identical, with the picture being in its original aspect ratio (more or less), without 16x9 Enhancement, and with a Dolby Pro-Logic mix for the original English dialogue. However, the Region 1 version of the disc also features a Pan & Scan version of the film on a separate layer. If your desire to see the scene composition destroyed is that great, then the Region 1 version of the disc is for you, but otherwise the local version is the way to go.

Summary

Picture the worst film that you have seen Jean-Claude Van Damme in, and if it isn't Cyborg, multiply its badness and lameness by about ten. The film is quite simply so bad that it is good, and then bad all over again, all within the same second. This transfer marks the progress of what has been a worrying trend from MGM, with films of all walks being given shoddy transfers.

The video quality ranges from dire to good, but on average is rather ordinary.

The audio quality is better, but it is clear that the sound isn't where the non-existent budget went.

There may as well be no extras.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Review Equipment

DVD	Toshiba SD-2109, using S-video output
Display	Samsung CS-823AMF (80 cm), 16:9 mode/4:3 mode, using composite and S-video inputs
Audio Decoder	Built In (Amplifier)
Amplification	Sony STR-DE835
Speakers	Panasonic S-J1500D Front Speakers, Philips PH931SSS Rear Speakers, Philips FB206WC Centre Speaker, JBL Digital 10 Active Subwoofer