Cannon Film Review/Comment
AKA
A Continuing Review Series of Important Cannon Films
“Get up, it's just
a flesh wound”
|
American Cyborg: Steel Warrior by
Nathan Decker
(Cross-posted
at Post-Apocalypse.co.uk) Today, I'll be reviewing an
Israeli post-apocalyptic action movie from 1994, one of countless such genre movies
churned out by Cannon Films and legendary producers Golan and Globus. Expect
lots of action, lots of blood, lots of mullets, and very little else, but
also expect to be rather entertained in a mind-numbing sort of way. Our movie is set in Charleston,
South Carolina, a sleepy old port city along the Atlantic coast. The real
Charleston is a sprawling metropolis of about 600,000 people with a historic
district, ghettos, military bases, suburban enclaves and legions of cute
Southern Belles looking crisp and cool in the sweltering summer heat. I was
just there in '98 for work, and I got to tell you, it's a very pretty city.
It's also a primary nuclear target in any exchange scenario you want to
envision, with a major US Navy base, an Army Depot, a nuclear reactor, and a
fair amount of industry all concentrated in a relatively small space. The Charleston of American
Cyborg: Steel Warrior, however, consists of a single abandoned, run-down
tractor factory west of Tel Aviv, Israel. Seriously, one building. If you
look closely, you can see the same staircases, the same walls, the same
machinery, the same girders, the same rooms in shot after shot, the only
differences being lighting, some prop dressing and camera angles. This is
cost savings at its most obvious, though I'm sure it did save a ton of money
that could be used for other, more impressive, special effects. Oh, that's
right, there aren't any special effects, so maybe the extra money just went
to buying the director a new Mercedes.
It's
17 years since the nuclear war to end all nuclear wars laid waste to the
world. A dicey clue suggests the war was around 1999, so that would place our
timeframe about 2015. At the time of the war, an ultra-sophisticated
artificial intelligence computer system was running the world, using robots
("cyborgs", though they are more accurately "androids")
to "help humanity". After the war, however, the "System",
as we will call it, took over and started to exert control over the pitiful
remains of the human race. All survivors were herded into the ruined cities
and kept contained until they died naturally or killed themselves off in the
quest for food and safety.
To
impose their unique brand of justice, the System created "killer
Cyborgs" to enter the cities and "eliminate" anyone who
dissented. The Cyborgs are virtually indestructible killing machines who look
like regular male humans. I think there's only one mass-produced type (the
one we see), a big strapping dude, about 6'4" 250, who looks like a
Czech hockey player or maybe a German industrial rock guitarist. This model
of Cyborg comes standard with infrared vision, the hearing of a bat, computer
interface plug in his finger, a tenth degree black belt in Karate, and an
outfit of black leather spike-studded motorcycle jacket, black jeans and
combat boots.
The
anthropomorphic nature of the Cyborg is not explained, though we can assume
that it's the same reason used in The Terminator series, to allow the
robot to blend in enough to gain entrance to human redoubts. That said, the
decision to make a standard Cyborg model that looks so continental is
strange, as you'd think something more American-looking would work better.
Anyway, if you are trying to instill fear and respect in your human slaves,
then I'd suggest something fifteen-feet tall and bristling with 30mm cannons
and flamethrowers, crunching through the rubble on thick steel treads,
dispensing justice through the liberal use of heat-seeking fragmentation
rockets. But that's just me.
While
most of the huddled masses in Charleston have given up hope of anything
better, a courageous band of rebels is working out of sight to defeat the
evil hegemony of the robots and the System and return humanity to its glory
days. Our movie is about this resistance movement, as seen through the eyes
of a single woman, and the vile machine that seeks only to eliminate her
before she can bring hope to the rest of humanity. Ok,
I know, I know, American Cyborg: Steel Warrior is a blatant rip-off of
The Terminator, T2, Blade Runner, RoboCop, Van
Damme's Cyborg, and about a dozen other similar "homages" to
the genre. But we knew that already, right? I'm not going to waste my time
comparing our movie to those that came before it, we have better things to
talk about. Like
how these rebels have somehow managed to create an underground laboratory
beneath the ravaged streets of Charleston, fully stocked with salvaged
computers and scientific equipment. A large group of smartyhead doctors is working
on the most pressing detriment to the survival of the species, namely that
since the war all females are barren.
All,
that is, except for one young woman, most providentially named Mary, who
amazingly has live ova inside her. The scientists have taken an ova from her,
mixed in some sperm, and created a "test tube baby" that is the
"only hope for humanity". The fetus, now about four weeks old, is
kept in this wicked cool glowing see-through containment unit about the size
of a soccer ball.
Mary
will be our film's heroine, our Sarah Conner figure but without the buff
pecs. She's played by Nicole Hansen, a attractive twentysomething blonde who
looks remarkably like Darryl Hannah in the face. She's a rotten actress,
incapable of effective line-reads for most of the movie, but she's hot, so
that makes up for it. Her single outfit for the entire film is a low-cut
tight red top, black cotton leggings, Rosie Perez hoop earrings, and the most
ridiculous pair of fringy leather calf-high boots you've seen since...well,
since 1994.
The
problem is that the lab in Charleston doesn't have an incubator sophisticated
enough to properly gestate the fetus to full term. Hey, why didn't they just
leave it inside Mary? They never explain that. However, over in Europe, equally
as war-ravaged but not as oppressed, they have the necessary incubator. Via
ham radio, Charleston and Europe have arranged for a boat to sneak over to
America and pick up the fetus and take it back overseas.
The
other problem, and more pressing to our film's plot, is that Charleston is
crawling with Cyborg killers, especially the docks, which are
"restricted". The scientists have no choice, however, and so they
equip and arm a small team to take Mary and the fetus to the docks. Time is
of the essence, as the fetus in the containment thingie can only survive for
36 hours.
Now,
clearly, the System isn't too happy about the prospects of humanity breeding
again. Receiving some intel on the human lab, the System sends down a Cyborg
terminator (hehe...) to wipe it out. Armed only a submachine gun and his
indestructible fuzzy goatee, the Cyborg storms the lab. At that exact moment,
the team is nearly set to leave for the docks, the fetus loaded up in Mary's
backpack.
The
carnage is swift and bloody, the Cyborg taking much return fire but shaking
it off as he's nearly bulletproof. The Cyborg brings a prop-tweaked
Kalashkinov AKS-74U submachinegun with some sort of weird cover around the
barrel. It also seems to have a bottomless magazine, as he fires zillions of
rounds throughout the movie without reloading once.
I think
I'm going to keep a running tally of a few things. First, the number of
humans killed in the movie, next the number of blood-pack squibs used, which
it seems that Cannon Films bought on discount sale. I'll also keep note of
how much ammunition the Cyborg uses, based on the AKS-74U's 635 rounds per
minute of 5.45mm on full-auto (per crazygunfreakwithnolife.com). Total
dead humans in this scene: 22 Only
two people make it out of the firestorm alive, Mary and one other woman. The
Cyborg sees them escape, and as his programming told him to eliminate all the
humans down here, he gives chase. Nothing we will see suggests that the
Cyborg is aware of the baby in the jar, he's just following orders. The
girls make it to the surface, hotly pursued, and are trapped at a high
chainlink fence. The Cyborg shoots the other girl dead (to artfully hang on
the fence) but Mary escapes the hail of bullets. Mary spends the entire rest
of the movie dodging bullets, and still keeps her hair beautiful.
The
Cyborg is then held up by a group of scavengers who appear out of the shadows
to pounce on the still-warm corpse of the girl, looking for loot and maybe
even tasty flesh. The scavengers try and fight the Cyborg, but he's a hard
metal robot with a machinegun and kung-fu skills, so you know how that works
out for them. Total
dead humans in this scene: 4
Mary,
meanwhile, has made it to some random abandoned building, where she's not
running very fast, and hiding too much, and really can't be surprised that
the Cyborg soon catches up to her. It's dark in there, and in one of the film's
neater touches, the Cyborg's eyes light up like little flashlights on goggles
filmed from about 100 feet away so it looks like they are internally lit.
More gunfire, more running, more of the Cyborg looking menacing, much more of
Mary looking scared and breathing heavily. Another bunch of rounds of 5.45mm
ammo fired, and still not one hit on Mary. You'd think a Cyborg with cool
fire-control programming and laser eye-ball sighting like RoboCop would have
better aim. Total
rounds fired by the Cyborg in this scene: 116
They
chase and run and hide and shoot and generally test my patience for about
five minutes. In the end, Mary, showing vastly more resourcefulness than
expected, manages to drop an engine block (!) on the Cyborg, pinning him long
enough for her to escape out into the alley.
The
streets, even at nighttime, are thick with wandering people. Fashions run the
gamut from Blade Runner-esque transparent plastic raincoats to surplus
Israeli Army combat fatigues. Cootie-infested hookers call to passerbys and
bums beg for money in the muddy streets. There are also dangerous criminal
gangs preying on the weak and the stupid, and it is into the arms of one of
these gangs that Mary now stumbles.
Just
when it looks like Mary is dead meat, a knife comes whistling in to thump
into one of the gangsters! Out of the shadows comes our movie's hero, the
rugged and deadly Austin, the prototypical wasteland avenger and rescuer of
damsels in distress. Austin is played by b-movie specialist Joe Lara, a big
buff Lorenzo Lamas-wannable with a spectacularly flowing mullet and a finely
chiseled chin. He's armed with a variety of knives, a pistol, and an AK-47
with the pistol grip (which is probably a fake prop as he never uses it
once). His outfit is typical Mad Max-like, with a lot of camo and olive drab,
leather pants, bandoleers with numerous flappy pouches, and way too much
chest hair showing. Most oddly, in most scenes he has a bulky rucksack on his
back, with a huge shiny silver metal messkit that dangles down by his hip,
making him look a bit like a PA-version of an 1849 California gold
prospector.
Anyway,
the gangsters make a go of it against Austin, but they don't stand a chance.
Austin is both well-armed and well-schooled in martial arts. He stabs, he
kicks, he tosses them over his shoulder. The bad guys swing knives and sticks
and even a medieval mace (!) but Austin dodges, spins and parries them all.
And then he kicks their asses. Dead
humans in this scene: 1 The
gangsters down, Austin rifles through the pockets one of them and retrieves
some battery packs that he later says were stolen from him. Mary sees Austin
as her only chance for survival, despite having just met him and really not
sure what kind of man he is, and begs to go with him. Austin, however, isn't
interested in some girl tagging along and leaves her there.
Mary
follows Austin anyway, not really having anything else to do, and they both
end up in the shop of a local arms merchant/scrap dealer/Watto-esque sort of dude.
The merchant is an awesome visual character, an Arabic man dressed in a
mobster pinstripe suit and spats, and strangely wearing a neck brace (maybe
just because it looks cool).
Austin
is there to trade the battery packs for some RZB tablets. These are
"anti-radiation pills" that you need to consume if you are to have
any hope for a long life in the ruins. The merchant is driving a hard, and
unfair, bargain when Mary pipes up. She claims that she's on the way to the
docks to meet a boat carrying a huge supply of RZB tabs, and if Austin helps
her get there, he can have all he can carry in payment. That's a blatant lie,
of course, but it's just too good an offer for Austin to turn down.
But,
boom! The wall explodes inward and the Cyborg jumps through the hole! The
merchant's bodyguards start shooting, but the Cyborg guns them all down. He
then shoots the merchant in the head for daring to haggle with him. That's
why capitalism is doomed to failure. Total
dead humans in this scene: 4
Austin
now jumps out, putting himself between the Cyborg and Mary. A pretty
one-sided fight develops quickly, with Austin trying his best to hold off the
Cyborg with everything from knives to lead pipes to two-by-fours. But he's
hopelessly outmatched by the killer robot and ends up inches from death.
Mary
saves the day here, by popping up with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher
(this is an arms merchant's shop) and blasting the Cyborg in the midsection,
allowing them to escape in the resulting puff of smoke. The Cyborg, however
recovers quickly. It's said that he's made of some sort of "liquid
metal" (how original...) so he can "heal itself" quickly.
Oddly, though, the oft-bullet riddled black leather jacket he wears seems to
"heal itself" between scenes as well... Ok,
so Austin knows the way to the docks. He says he's been there once, a long
time ago and he didn't like it much. The docks are forbidden to humans,
"on the other side of the barrier", but the sewers run down to the
sea and that's one way to get there. The tunnels are mined, however, and we
see them gingerly stepping around the dinner-plate sized mines, laid
haphazardly in the shallow murky water.
But
the Cyborg has tracked them to the sewers and gives chase. The Cyborg has a
special vision program that allows him to see the residual heat signatures
from footsteps on the cold dark ground, which is pretty cool. As he catches
up, he starts shooting down the tunnel at them, but hits only some poor
innocent rats, caught in the crossfire and tragically gunned down in the
prime of their lives. Total
rounds fired by the Cyborg in this scene: 31
Down
in the tunnel, Austin rigs a mine as a booby trap, setting his rifle on top
of the mine trigger. As he and Mary egress to the surface, the fast-moving
Cyborg trips the mine, sending a blast wave of smoke and flash gushing out of
the sewer entrance. They both realize that a mine, no matter how big, won't
stop the hunter for long, so they set off at a steady trot.
The
sewer route now out of the question (why again? why can't they just go
further down the line and reenter the sewers?) Austin and Mary have to travel
above ground, rapidly now as the Cyborg is back on their tail. Travel during
the daytime is risky, both due to the increased chances of detection by
robots from the System, and the skin-scorching solar radiation. All those
nukes in the air 17 years ago have apparently weakened the o-zone layer
enough to make a summer sunburn particularly deadly. When forced to travel in
the sun, Austin and Mary stick to shadows and wear sunglasses and these dorky
headscarves. The Cyborg, however, is unaffected by the sun and the heat and
continues to dress like the drummer from the band Danzig. As
night falls, they go to a safe house of sorts, clearly somewhere Austin has
stayed before. There's some books, some knick-knacks and even a big American
flag tacked up on the wall. Austin shows some considerable kindness to Mary,
really for the first time, and she appreciates the gesture. Exhausted, Austin
sleeps on the couch while Mary takes the bed (aww, how sweet).
But,
as always, the Cyborg enters! Another fight in the ruins, another chance for
Mary to run and scream, for Austin to conduct a fall-back defense, and for
the Cyborg to look damn cool. Total
rounds fired by Cyborg in this scene: 42
All
these Austin-versus-Cyborg fights (and there are a most tedious amount of
them) follow the same pattern. The Cyborg shoots a lot and misses. Austin
then moves in close and hits and swings and jabs, and the Cyborg parries
everything and then smacks Austin in return. Back and forth, back and forth.
At the end of the sequence, something fortuitous happens (the Cyborg falls
through a floor, or trips, or something) allowing Austin and Mary to escape
once again. When injured, the Cyborg "bleeds" a syrupy whitish
liquid, just like the android in Aliens. I swear, this movie rips off
so much stuff from other films that it wouldn't surprise me in the least if
Mary suddenly put on a gingham dress and burst out in a rendition of Somewhere
Over the Rainbow while little Austrian children dance around her.
The
Cyborg is two seconds from killing Mary when Austin trips him over a ledge
(see, I told you). The Cyborg falls onto a long auger bit, conveniently
pointing straight up. But even that isn't enough to stop the killer robot, as
in short order he breaks off the auger and "heals himself".
Anyway,
Mary and Austin escape again and run like hell. Running low on supplies and ammo,
Austin votes to take a short detour to where he has a hidden stash of ammo.
Once there, Mary stands guard while Austin goes down into a huge empty
holding tank. He has a rope hidden nearby, which he uses to rappel down into
the darkness, gas mask over his face to hide the fact that it's a stuntman.
His stash, however, has been raided!
Up
above, Mary is caught by a woman with a pistol and held captive. The woman
tries to put the moves on Mary, suggesting that there's room inside her pants
for the both of them! "Why don't I climb in there with you and we'll
enter a three-legged race?" the woman sneers, "Drop your drawers,
bitch!" Mary is pretty dense here, and doesn't seem to understand what
the woman is suggesting, though it's pretty clear to us.
She's
saved by Austin, who disarms the woman and then starts to talk to her (!). It
seems that she's a "friend" of his, though a trigger-happy twitchy
friend, and it was her who emptied his ammo stash. Her name is
"Carp" and she's short and annoying and lesbian in a bad butchy
sort of way. She gives Austin the bullets back and he and Mary head off, with
the woman telling him to come back some time. Not
long after that, the flames of jealousy begin to lick at Mary. She tries to pin
Austin down on the exact nature of the "friendship" that he and
Carp have. Austin coyly holds his ground, claiming that Carp is "as
close to family as I have", though he can see now that Mary has gushy
feelings for him. Kill me.
Now,
Mary couldn't keep the secret of the fetus in the pack from Austin forever, right?
And it finally happens, she slips on some muddy rocks, he reaches out to
steady her and his hand accidentally brushes open the backpack, exposing the
freaky baby in the tube. Austin is understandably freaked out and demands
that Mary tell him the truth.
Mary
gives it all up now, admitting she lied about the RZB tabs, owning up to the
baby being hers, and begging Austin to help her to the docks anyway. Austin,
not without reason I say, rages that he doesn't care, that he was lied to,
and he's leaving back for the city and Mary is on her own. Mary tries
hammering on Austin's sense of humanity, noting correctly that this baby
might be the last hope for the race to survive. "Don't be mad." she
says, but Austin is too angry to listen right now and he leaves as promised.
He does, however, give her a pistol and what little ammo he has left, and he
seems genuinely conflicted about what he's about to do.
But
leave he does, and Mary is alone again. She stands there forlornly for a
minute, clearly unsure what to do. But she knows that she carries the hope of
the human race on her back, and bodyguard or no bodyguard, she has an
obligation to get the baby safely to the docks. Off she heads... ...into
a nest of cannibals! These will be the "Leeches", a group of
radiation-mutated flesh-eaters (all-too-common fare in cheap PA movies, and
rarely done realistically, especially here). The Leeches occupy a former
church, where they keep their loot and cook up any hapless victims that they
catch.
Their
latest snack is soon to be poor Mary, captured quite easily when she wandered
somewhere she shouldn't have. She's tied to a vaguely cross-shaped iron beam,
stretched out like she's been crucified (the religious undertones in this
movie are mostly subtle, but occasionally quite striking, as in this scene).
It doesn't look good for her, the cannibals chant "Food!" as the
Head Leech tells her that they will honor her great physical beauty by
"tasting her" (I said that to a girl once, cost my brother $150 to
bail me out of jail...).
Austin
has a change of heart and rushes to the scene to rescue Mary and the baby. The
Leeches turn to confront him, armed with knives, pikes and swords. Austin
pulls out a pistol, a small 9mm Beretta automatic, and starts shooting. It's
strange to see Austin, a big burly hairy dude, holding that dinky little
girly pistol. Eastwood would have had a huge chrome .44 Magnum and a pack of
unfiltered Lucky Strikes if he was in this scene. Stallone would have had a
big blue-steel Desert Eagle revolver with a laser sight. Swartzenagger would
have some big-ass Gatling gun firing armor-piercing rounds. Oh, and Chuck
Norris would have killed everybody in the room just by threatening to unleash
one of his legendary roundhouse kicks, half of the Leeches would have
collapsed out of sheer envy of Norris' uber-manly alpha-manliness (I admit
it, I have a man-crush on Chuck Norris. And I don't care what you think, you
can't understand our love).
Anyway,
Austin empties the clip and then tosses the empty pistol at another cannibal
before jumping in with fists a-flying. The cannibals are poor fighters,
basically just mindless zombies rushing headlong into Austin's flashing
blades and swinging boots. Joe Lara did most, if not all, of his own stunts
in this scene, and he is indeed in excellent physical condition. And between
takes the make-up girls made sure his mullet was properly flowing.
The
Head Leech escapes with the backpack (though he doesn't know what's in it),
and Austin gives chase. Out on an open roof they punch, kick, gouge, shove
and generally abuse each other until Austin gets the upper hand and
dispatches the Head Leech. The baby is saved. Dead
humans in this scene: 20
Mary
and Austin now share a quiet moment in the church, amidst the bloated
bleeding bodies of the slaughtered Leeches, no less. They talk about the
future, about the past, and about why Austin came back for her. Mary tells
him about her childhood in a bunker as the bombs fell and how robots killed
her family. Austin, though, doesn't share his childhood stories yet. But they
kiss a nice slow long-time-coming kiss as the music swoons.
However,
before Austin can get past first base, the Cyborg punches his way into the
room! Good Lord, this guy never gives up! Yet another fight develops, this
one a wicked one, with fire axes, pistols, knives, metal poles and size 13
Israeli combat tanker boots all used in a variety of messy, violent ways. Total
rounds fired by Cyborg in this scene: 14
Austin
cuts off one of the Cyborg's arms (!) and pushes him into an elevator shaft
(!). But, as he falls, the Cyborg manages to grab ahold of one of Austin's
arms (!). In a rather bloody and gory sequence, Austin's arm is ripped out of
its socket! Austin screams in pain and clutches the stump. He then sees that
inside the bloody stump are a bunch of wires and electrodes!
And
now we have our movie's "stunning" and "shocking" plot
twist: Austin is really a cyborg! Who knew! Well, I guess you might have
figured it out before now, there were a few clues dropped. Like the fact that
his head wound healed miraculously without a scar, just like the Cyborg, and
he seemed to be able to take an incredible amount of physical punishment and
still keep on his feet, just like the Cyborg, and even that one bit where the
Cyborg seemed to realize Austin was one of them. Joe Lara's acting style is
also cyborg-like, if you know what I mean.
Mary
points the pistol at Austin, and screams at him about betrayal and lies and
deceit and that time she caught him text messaging that girl from
work...wait, not, that was me last week. Anyway, Mary is pissed, she thinks
Austin has been in cahoots with the Cyborg to get her baby (despite all the
evidence to the contrary) and is this close to putting a bullet in
Austin's head. But, her emotions get the better of her and she just runs off,
leaving Austin to sort out his own emotional crisis alone. By
the way, we never get any explanation about Austin being a cyborg. Just
accept the fact that he, like Rick Deckard before him, had to find out the
hard way that his insides were made by Sony and GE.
Mary
then somehow (?) makes it to the docks alone (?). We see the Atlantic Ocean
at sunrise, the gentile waves lapping at an elevated causeway as Mary walks
along. What about all that ominous talk about how the docks were
"forbidden" and how even super-studly Austin wouldn't go there
anymore? Maybe by now Mary has learned enough about wasteland survival to do
it alone, but a little more exposition might be in order.
As
Mary looks for a way around a high fence, the only sign of a
"barrier", it starts to rain. Oh oh! It's acid rain! Mary jumps
under an overhang as the toxic rain sizzles all around her. She pulls out her
canteen and tries to wash the acid off her exposed skin, and off the
backpack, which took quite a dousing before she found cover. Why wasn't this
acid rain mentioned before? It makes sense, though, with all the
contamination in the air.
Just
then, who should appear behind her but Carp (the lesbian woman from earlier)!
What the hell? She claims that she followed Mary here to get some RZB tabs
for herself, sure that Austin (that rat) wouldn't cut her in on any like he
promised (just like a man...). Carp is actually here to be helpful, which is
surprising as I sorta pegged her earlier as a traitor to the cause.
Carp
shows Mary a way down to the water's edge, through a short tidal overflow
tunnel that leads under a wide pier. The tunnel is an easy traverse, despite
the week-old corpse being eaten by rats and the scary organ music. Mary is
extremely happy to make it to the water, her long journey across the city
finally over and now her baby will be safe. Right on cue, she spies a ship
offshore, with a few guys coming towards her in a small power boat.
Suddenly,
the Cyborg bursts up out of the surf a few feet in front of her! What the
holy hell! Die, already! Who do you think you are, the Terminator? Oh, and
the Cyborg has "regenerated" his arm that was cut off, though it's
now all black and gooey-looking. He's lost his submachinegun, but he's still
got the advantage over a 110-pound girl.
Mary
freaks out and runs (well, sloshes through the knee deep water, the actress
is really getting a workout in this movie) away screaming bloody murder. She
hunkers behind a corroded pier support, pistol in hand, heart pounding. The
Cyborg wades around under the pier, searching for her.
Mary
shoots the Cyborg in the eye (!), giving her time to run out onto the open
beach. The scriptwriters then suddenly forget the whole "sunlight is
bad" thing as the tank-top wearing Mary runs around in the bright sun.
They also seem to have forgotten the season, as all the other actors and
extras in this entire movie have been dressed like it's September in
Greenland, and now all of a sudden it's a sunny tropical day. Oh well, moving
on, the Cyborg pegs Mary in the back of the head with a well-tossed hubcap (really)
and it looks like our heroine is finally going to loose.
Just
then who should come running up to tackle the Cyborg? It's Austin! And he has
two arms! What the hell! Ah, remember back when he cut off the Cyborg's arm
before loosing his own? Well, while we were away, he somehow managed to sew
the Cyborg's arm onto his own stump and make it work!!!! Sure. I'd make more
of this, but it's late and I have to work in the morning so I'm just going to
let it go. Austin
and the Cyborg fight in the surf. They punch and jab, hold each other under
the water (though not sure what that's going to do, they're both robots) and
clutch and grab a lot. We get some close-ups of the Cyborg's face, the fake
eye damage really apparent. I know they were trying to do a Terminator thing
with the eye, but they need better make-up guys to do that.
Austin
then puts out the Cyborg's other eye! Blinded, the Cyborg is defenseless when
Austin slashes open his stomach, reaches in and grabs a handful of wires and
pulls them out! Good lord! The Cyborg expires, drifting away on the waves
before exploding in a big puff of smoke and flame.
The
boat then pulls into bay, a half-dozen Europeans at the rails. The baby is
rushed aboard and put into the incubator just in time. Notice that the men on
the boat handle the baby a million times more gently that Mary has all movie,
she's been bouncing and tossing him around in every scene.
The
baby safe, Mary wants Austin to come with her to Europe. "The baby needs
a father." she says, but Austin only replies that he can't, but
"The baby will have a great mother." Time is short, so they
exchange a last kiss and Mary gets on the boat.
The
end. Final
statistics: Written in September 2007 by Nathan Decker. |
%20%5bUK%20VHS%5d.jpg)
This brilliant review was kindly provided by Million
Monkey Theatre/Nathan Decker –thanks
Nate!
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no connection whatsoever with The Cannon Group, Inc.