Cyborg 2: Glass Shadow (1993)
Michael Schroeder
I am hard-pressed to decide which one was dumber: the original Van Damme yawn or the sequel. With some hesitation I have to declare a draw -- the original had some second-class martial action, the sequel has Angelina Jolie. In terms of superficiality and plain unoriginality, both ``excel'' well beyond your average B-movie, although it seems this one did have some budget (going to the usual inefficient waste).
The plot has little to do with the first Cyborg. This time, there are two giant corporations manufacturing cyborgs (men, women, soldiers, prostitutes, and apparently, dogs) while waging a war for market share. Pinwheel Corp. (of all names, they just HAD to invent this silly thing) has developed a lethal explosive which can be concealed within a cyborg which is then supposed to inflitrate the headquaters of the rival corporation and blow up the top brass to smitherenes. The film begins with the test of the ``glass shadow'' device -- nothing less gratuitous than a sexual intercourse which climaxes in the explosion. Damn, the girl was too pretty to be wasted like this in the first few minutes (I mean the getting torn to pieces part, not the having sex one)!
Now, the real fun begins as the Manchurian candidate is to be the female cyborg Cash. Unfortunately, she is in love with Colt, her martial arts instructor. He is a human, who (we learn in a fleeting 2 second sentence) has deeply resented the cyborgs until he fell in love with Cash. Yawn. The couple flees Pinhead Corp. and the executives send a cyborg-tracker specialist with the unlikely appellation of Danny (played by the eerie but annoyingly sluggish Billy Drago). There is, of course, some shooting, kissing, sex (not a whole lot but enough to get a minute cut on Fox), even the requisite hand to hand duel between Colt and Danny, which predictably ends with the death of the disfigured bounty hunter. Oh, and I almost forgot the pervasive intrusion of Mercy (Jack Palance) whose main role consists in appearing on every conceivable monitor, whether plugged in or not, displaying blue puffy lips (sometimes an eye) and guiding the escape of the two renegades. Aside from the tiresome drawl and ultra-heavy breathing between words, there is little in his performance that offends the audience. This may simply be due to his exceedingly short (about 2 minutes total) part where he shows more than his mouth. To cut the short story even shorter, Cash and Colt escape to some Arizona desert where they live happily ever after (which means until Colt dies of old age in the arms of his still-young wife, a Highlander sort of story, except now the man dies), and Mercy shows none to Pinwheel when he blows himself up together with the CEO.
The story is puerile, the landscapes look stolen from Blade Runner, the dialog is non-existent, most of the characters are annoying beyond comprehension. Do not waste your time on this flick unless you are into some serious masochism. 2 out of 10 -- the only reason the movie gets more than 1 is because of Angelina... and I don't mean her acting skills.
January 9, 2000. BLS