CYBORG COP III (1995)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological*

I don't usually spend much time touching on DTV films whose main purpose was just to show a lot of butt-kicking amid some mild SF-elements, but I happened across CYBORG COP III on an old VHS tape and gave it a watch.

I think I saw the first two in the series, which struck me as efficient if unremarkable action-flicks. Like this one, those installments focuses not upon a low-rent version of Robocop, but a heroic human cop who has to take on cyborg opponents for assorted reasons. In both previous films the kickbutt cop was played by David Bradley, better known for his martial arts expertise than his acting. But even though Part III substitutes two heroes in place of one, Frank Zagarino and Bryan Genesse-- formerly opponents in the second "Shadowchaser" film
-- don't even provide the mild entertainment of one Bradley. Both men have done tolerable action-films before and after this one, but their script is so ghastly they've nothing to work with.

Quick summation: an evil company, Deltatech, begins working on cyborg-soldiers whose genetic material includes cockroach DNA, so that they'll be able to survive nuclear war. Supposedly this makes such soldiers interesting to foreign agents, but an intrepid reporter manages to get on the trail of the illegal arms deal, and she involves two witless U.S. marshals in the case.

The bit about the cockroach DNA is about the only element that causes me to label this a "cosmological" film: in no other way does the script do anything with the science of cyborg technology-- so that it's just as clueless in that respect as in every other one.

CCIII might be good for a few laughs at its incompetence if one is in the mood for a pathetic misfire. But it's not "so bad it's good;" it's just bad.