this morning's collateral van damme-age (minus the jean claude...)cyborg 2
director: michael schroeder // 1993
cinema 4 rating: 4
i remember hardly one moment of the original film in this series (is it really a series if the first film wasn't any good, and wasn't even really intended to be a series?), but i do remember seeing it in a theatre, which was a direct result of the van damme madness that swept the video world following bloodsport and kickboxer -- sure, the guy couldn't act and turned out to be, from most accounts, an ass -- but he was, at the time, kind of cool, had a cheesy/cool name, was certainly better looking than chuck norris, and could, on screen at least, kick major ass -- i and a small assortment of friends began a vigil for several years, going to any van damme film that hit the big screen, waiting for that moment when the plot would catch up to his accent, a process which sometimes involved the plot jumping through hoops and over roadblocks to try and explain why he sounds the way he does (double impact is the best example for this) -- does any of this jar loose memories of cyborg? hmmm... not at all --- i know he wasn't the titular cyborg... i think it was some chick --- he was just some amazingly talented martial artist that helps her out --- there's nothing on the line, really, in fighting ring square-offs if j.c.v.d. is merely an android that is programmed to kick everybody's butt -- honestly, is it revealed that he is really one too? i simply can't remember, except the fact that the film was probably the worst-directed piece of schlock i had seen since starcrash (ahhh, caroline munro...) in my teens -- and then, the sequels came out in the '90s to this terminator, er, homage, and were i the world at the time, i would have breathed a collective, long low sigh of disbelief -- i think i did that on my own -- rest assured, i did not rush to rent these films, and in fact, had not seen one until now -- if i had, i would have fallen instantly in love with the then-18-year-old angelina jolie, already fully slutty and gettin' naked onscreen -- i would have studiously supported the viewpoint to all of my friends that, "no, really, this one is much better than the original," and become so firm in this belief (which would have been technically correct, but only by a slim margin), that i would make my friends watch it to prove my point, and they would all use the fact that i made them watch this tripe against me, in much the same way some of them would use eraserhead or spider baby against me, and others would later use motorama -- my point, as always, was not that any of these were great films (though eraserhead is), but that they were at least more entertaining as pure reckless junk than were most of the stifling major studio releases that people were exposing themselves to at those moments -- i would have held this viewpoint on cyborg 2 throughout most of the following decade, but then give it up through sheer ennui, and also through the gradually dawning realization that cyborg 2 is almost exactly like its progenitor in one major aspect -- it is merely several hours after i initially viewed it, and i have already forgotten most of it, except that jolie was one hot cyborg -- the time will surely come when i will forget even this fact...
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