Director/Story – Sam Firstenberg, Screenplay – Jon Stevens, Producer – Danny Lerner, Photography – Yossi Wein, Music – Bob Mithoff, Visual Effects – Visionart Design & Animation, Inc. (Supervisor – Joshua Rose), Special Effects Supervisor – Rick Cresswell, Production Design – John Rosewarne. Production Company – Nu World.
Cast
David Bradley (Jack Ryan), Morgan Hunter (Jesse Starkraven/Spartacus), Jill Pierce (Liz McDowell), Victor Mellaney (Sam Pickens), Dale Cutts (Captain Salerno), Douglas Bristow (Dr Owns), Adrian Waldron (Jon Travis), Hector Rabotabi (Mike Alvarez), Kimberleigh Stark (Gloria Alvarez), Frank Notard (Stix), Michael McGovern (Warden Chuck Hunter)
Plot
DEA agent Jack Ryan goes into a heavily armed shootout to apprehend drug kingpin Jesse Starkraven. Starkraven wants to kill Ryan in revenge for Ryan having killed Starkraven’s brother. During the course of the arrest, Ryan’s partner is killed. Starkraven is sentenced to death but Ryan then learns that he has escaped from jail. Determined to make Starkraven face justice, Ryan learns that the escape was just a cover story created by the shadowy government agency The Anti-Terrorist Group. Starkraven has been taken and rebuilt by Dr Owns as a near-invincible cyborg called Spartacus. However, Starkraven breaks free of his control chip and frees the rest of the cyborgs. They break out, determined to establish a new cyborg order. It is up to Ryan to stop them.
The video-released Cyborg Cop (1993) was a moderate success. It starred David Bradley, an American martial artist who came to fame in the American Ninja sequels and then Cannon Films’ American Samurai (1992). (Bradley should not be confused with British actor David Bradley, who appeared in Game of Thrones (2011-19) and has several appearances in Doctor Who (2005- ) as the First Doctor). American Samurai and the second of the American Ninja films were all directed by Sam Firstenberg.
Following Cannon Films’ financial collapse, Avi and Danny Lerner set up shop as Nu World and Fisrstenberg reunited with Bradley to make Cyborg Cop, which was evidently of sufficient success that it spawned two sequels, beginning here and followed by Cyborg Cop III (1995), made without Bradley.
Cyborg Cop II is a film almost entirely driven its action content. This first sixteen minutes consists of assorted bad guys turning up at a drug warehouse and ending up in a big shootout, followed by the cops arriving in an even bigger shootout, and then David Bradley and lead bad guy Morgan Hunter going head-to-head in unarmed combat. This all occurs before any of the characters are even introduced. Plotwise there is little to the film beyond guns, lots of explosions and David Bradley beating people up.
David Bradley in action, shooting up a drug warehouse
The Cyborg Cop films were undeniably inspired by RoboCop (1987). However, when we learn that the cyborgs here have control chips located in baseball caps, we realise we are not exactly in high credibility stakes. The issue one would have about the Cyborg Cop films is that they have titles clearly intended to evoke association with RoboCop but none of them actually feature cops who are cyborgs. There are plentiful scenes with one cop (Bradley) fighting assorted cyborgs but you feel that that is blurring the trade descriptions act. The first film had Bradley as DEA agent Jack Ryan (no relation to Tom Clancy’s hero) finding his brother had been converted into a cyborg; this ups the stakes and places Bradley against a host of cyborgs, the leader of which killed his partner.
Cyborg Cop II was shot on location in South Africa. This makes for an acceptable stand-in for the USA, although what punctures the illusion is the accents of several of the supporting cast, who are clearly South African locals attempting to affect American accents – notable offenders being Dale Cutts as Bradley’s captain and Victor Mellaney’s efforts to come across as a Texan.
Sam Firstenberg’s other films of genre note are:– Ninja III: The Domination (1984) and Avenging Force (1986), both for Cannon Films, Spider II: Breeding Ground (2001) and The Interplanetary Surplus Male and Amazon Women of Outer Space (2003).
