CYBORG 2: GLASS SHADOW (1993)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

Here's a rarity: a sequel-in-name-only that's better than the film on which the latter film is trying to coast.

CYBORG was just another desert-based post-apocalyptic flick, notable mostly for being an early success for Jean-Claude Van Damme. CYBORG 2 takes place in a big future-city dominated by mega-corporations. One of them, Pinwheel, specializes in producing cyborgs for everything from war to love-- that is, fighting in men's wars or serving in men's brothels.

Pinwheel has a competitor, the Asian-based Kobayashi Corporation, but the chairman of the board thinks he has the perfect solution to competitors: blow them up. Pinwheel plans to send a particular cyborg, dubbed Cash Reese, to the rival company as a gift, but with an extra added attraction: without her knowledge the cyborg has been loaded with "glass shadow," a chemical that can explode on command and doom all of the recipients of this living Trojan Horse.

Apparently before making this decision, Pinwheel was having this cyborg trained as a soldier, for we first see Cash-- played by Angelina Jolie when she was short of twenty years-- having a practice duel with her human trainer Colt (Elias Koteas). Cash is deeply concerned that her roommate, a fellow cyborg, has gone missing-- not knowing that the roommate was an early test case for "glass shadow."

Cash and Colt aren't obviously a couple at this point, but they bond quickly when a mysterious informer named "Mercy" (Jack Palance) informs them of Pinwheel's intentions. The two go on the run, intending to get out of the big city to some bucolic refuge. Pinwheel sends an assassin (Billy Drago) to take them out, while the Kobayashi bigwigs, who have been spying on Pinwheel, hire another assassin (Karen Shepherd) to bring Cash into their purview. 

Director/co-writer Michael Schroeder brings visual verve to the action-scenes, and the cityscape, while indebted to the usual BLADE RUNNER template for futuristic cities, is not slavish in its design. Jolie and Koteas both handle the fight-scenes well, providing a anticipation of Jolie's later career as a cinema tough-girl in SALT and in the Lara Croft series. Mercy is almost always heard over intercoms, with the Palance face only seen partially, and he provides an interesting vibe in that he often speaks in peculiar quasi-poetic dialogue. If I thought Schroeder and his fellow writers had managed to tap into real poetry, I might grade the movie's mythicity higher. But the ending, in which Cash and Colt escape but have to deal with their differing aging-rates, provides a more dramatic conclusion than one usually gets from most sci-fi cyborg-flicks.