Cybernator

Overview: So you wanna make a cyberpunk movie but you don’t have any money, ey? No problem! As long as you have a hand-held video cam, some blue paint and a few extra malleable thin rubber tubes in your garage, you too can shoot your own cyberpunk movie! Fair warning - you might have to spring for a few bucks at Toys-R-Us for some realistic looking guns though, so try to save up a paycheck or two before getting started! Here we have an example of the lowest in cyberpunk cinema. My review will be slightly different than most in that I won’t bother hiding spoilers. Truly, you won’t care. If you watch this movie, you won’t be watching it in eager anticipation of the plot turns. While I do give Cybernator only 1 star, it really is one of those “so bad it’s good movies.” You really might be interested in dropping 6 bucks on this turkey. Think not? Read the review.

The Story: The movie opens up in a complete dive strip club (a warehouse with a stage made up of black cardboard paper with shiny cut-out stars taped to it), where policeman Brent McCord (Lonnie Schuyler) comes along with his partner to see his stripper girlfriend. Unfortunately, some evil cyborgs have come to kill a US Senator, who just happens to be having sex in a sleazy room in the back (concrete walls, warehouse floor, etc.). After the evil cyborgs kill the senator, they decide to go on a rampage, randomly killing other folk. Of course, our great policeman is able to kill them, even though the cyborgs have ray guns.

At the Morgue: the Morgue, which looks surprisingly like a made-up office room, has an Indian doctor (who actually appears to be trying to act - one of the few) who has just completed her autopsy on the two cyborgs. She states of the tough one, “He is covered with a steel titanium alloy…he is virtually indestructible. He was killed when the bullet entered the heart…”

Hmm…indestructible ey? But can be killed with a bullet through the heart? Hmmm….In any event, the morgue chick is apparently well versed in identifying military cyborgs, and proclaims that these ones are “government property, possibly from the army or something.”

Our intrepid detectives then drive over to the local army building. You can tell its an army building due to the army-green colored early 70s oldsmobuick parked outside. They of course walk right into the General’s office, which is the same as the doctor’s office, but the bodies have been removed, and a flag and spaceman picture have been mounted on the wall. If this weren’t enough “reality” for you, the General’s desk has two American flags on it and a plastic toy tank to yet again convey that scary military feeling. This realism would have almost worked except for every so often, the camera veers too high and we see that the top of the general’s office is missing, and appears to be a made-up room in the same warehouse as the nudie bar.

In any event, while the cops are “interrogating” the general, (who tries to throw them off-track by proclaiming that the marines are working on that stuff, not the Army - so don’t bug him!), a random scientist walks in and announces, “Here’s the new design on the Blackhawk 2000 project.” After the General quickly kicks out the scientist, we find out that the Blackhawk 2000 project is “classified!”

Yes, ladies and gentleman, we have truly well thought-out plot points like this that permeate the movie. But wait - there’s more! That random scientist, who popped his head into the General’s office and spilled the classified program, quickly runs outside (like, RIGHT outside the General’s window) to secretly give the inside scoop to the cops. He of course wants to make sure they are really cops so he says, “You guys are cops? Show me your badges.” Being concerned that he’s meeting them right outside the General’s window, the scientist smartly tells them to meet him later that night in an abandoned alleyway. But alas, he was overheard by the Cybernator - who just happens to be waiting right next to them in a parked truck!

Unfortunately, our star’s partner gets killed by the Cybernator, so he decides to substitute his stripper girlfriend as his new partner. As the plot continues, we find that it is in fact an evil Colonel (played by an actual B actor - William Smith!) who is behind the nasty cyborgs. What’s worse, our dear police man is actually a cyborg in disguise!!!!! Versus us finding out by some cool way, say, of seeing the skin from his arm come off or something, they instead go for the ingenious method of just announcing it!

And now the military wants to kill the evil Colonel, so they capture the stripper and tell Brent that he’s a cyborg, and that he must kill the rogue cyborgs if he ever wants to see his stripper chick again. Are they guarding her at a special military base? Of course not! They appear to be holding the chick at the director’s house. Incidentally, I hope they added the puke green carpet to make us think this was an Army installation, cause if this was his actual decor, Damn!

Finally we come to the best scene of the movie - the fat cyberchick scene! This chick is doing her best at belly dancing, but apparently they forgot to give her lessons. Still, it’s the thought that counts, or so I’ve heard. I think this scene is supposed to represent the seedy underground - the place Brent goes to find out where the bad guys are. There’s nothing special here, but the line of the movie - it’s priceless.

A random sleaze bag dude is truly enjoying himself while watching the sexy belly dancer. Then he notices a cyborg standing nonchalantly beside him. Apparently, the cyborg doesn’t think she’s all that, which pisses off the sleazebag. So he, being a helpless, loser sleaze bag, of course decides to pick a fight, and says:

Sleaze bag: Cyborg Scum! You’ve got the passion of a toaster!
Cyborg Response: “Some of my best friends are toasters…You Fuck!!!”

The cyborg then takes out a gun and shoots the sleazebag in the face - definitely the best real laugh of the movie.

The movie goes on and on like this - until the final conflict! At last, we get to the epic battle between the two Blackhawk 2000 Cyborgs - the Cybernator and our cheesy cop detective, Brent. At least we’ll see an epic battle, right? NO!!! Yet again we are fooled. Guess how you beat the evil blue cyborg with the weird little tubes dangling from his head? That’s right - you just take out the tubes! True insanity in action ladies and gents.

But wait! There’s more! It turns out that the evil Colonel Peck is…dun dun dun - Brent’s Brother!!!! Why the plot twist? No real reason given…just…um, because the Army is eeeeeeeevil! To which of course, Brent responds, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” (not really…but he should have - instead he says, “Your not my fuckin brother!”)

The Bottom Line: Now I won’t spoil it by showing you the cheesy ending, or worse, the cheesy rationale for the evil cyborgs, but suffice to say the quality is as good at the end as it is throughout. Rarely have I seen acting and dialog of this caliber. Clearly, the vast majority of the lines were ad-libbed (I hope). And, um, nobody in this movie can ad-lib. Still, Cybernator does qualify as a “So bad it’s good” movie – the type that makes Plan 9 look well thought out. So if you want to see the worst that cyberpunk cinema has to offer, kick back with a group of friends and enjoy!