Cyborg - Il Guerriero d'Acciaio

Italy • 1989 • 90m •

• Directed by: Giannetto De Rossi. • Starring: Frank Zagarino, Henry Silva, Sherrie Rose, Brandon Hammond, James Summers, Bill Hughes, Ronald Lang, Thomas Rack, Gray Jordan, Carles Irving, Brenda Muller, Peter Ward, George Martin. • Music by: Lanfranco Perini.

A hi-tech and secretly developed cyborg escapes from his freezer on a military research vessel. The US government promptly sends out a team of soldiers to destroy him, led by the sadist Hammer who doesn't mind using heavy artillery in places crowded with innocent civilians and making lots of collateral damage. The incredibly annoying teenage kid Brandon discovers the wounded cyborg in the woods and takes it back home to his sister. Instead of wondering what the hell a cyborg is doing in their living room, they teach him how to eat hamburgers, how to shop for ugly clothes and -' of course -' how to dance!

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2:14

Review:

Yes, it's terrible, but what sort of terrible is it? I'd say it's a stupid sort of terrible instead of an inept sort. FX genius De Rossi does quite a good job for a first time director, it's just that as is on occasion with Eurocult, clean cut visual execution is completely soiled by a godawful English dub. Same thing with frequent Rossi collaborator Lucio Fulci's Contraband. Everyone sounds as robotic as the lead, especially poor Henry Silva who is visually doing a better job then what's coming out his mouth is suggesting, like the angry American tourettes suffering cousin of HAL.

What doesn't help as well is that co-writer Sacchetti, whose blackly witty and pessimistic signature is all over this dog of a screenplay, is clearly writing beneath himself. Obviously trying to appeal to the American market as the dying Italian film industry of the day had no choice but to, he and Rossi the other co-writer attempt to craft some cyber-folk tale ala Terminator that is just too progressive and sentimental a narrative for their post Red Brigade Roman sensibilities to grasp. What we end up with is inane humour and cliché plot points. The best thing the two get away with is a comment on civilian slaughter by American sanctioned troops such like Vietnam and Reagan's Contra cocaine cowboys. Besides that, the story belongs more in a kids TV special than an Italia-Exploitation piece. The ending though is quite effective in its pathos.

Thankfully as those who are aware of Rossi's work from Ferox and Zombi 2 would expect, the FX on Cy are quite good. There's also the trademark scenes of carnage that typify Italian action, a half decent score and also moments of obscene awkward badness to guide you comfortably enough to the 90 minute mark.

Overall though, CY-Warrior Special Combat Unit is a bit of Ed Wood, a bit of Bruno Mattei, a bit of Rossi's own Fulci inspired lunacy and is a worthwhile 'bad' movie to enjoy with friends.

Review by daniel-mannouch from the Internet Movie Database.

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