Bullet Points: Cyberzone

With a name like Cyberzone you may be thinking I have gone way off the reservation and instead of reviewing an action movie, I decided to review a Cinemax After Dark series from the early 2000’s.

The title does sound like it could be a show about people in chat rooms whose sexy and erotic fantasies come true when they are sucked into the “Cyberzone”.

But Cyberzone is actually the title of 1995 sci-fi actioner that takes place in 2077 in a post earthquaked United States that saw California, Washington and Oregon disappear and left Phoenix, Arizona as the new metropolis of the west coast (at least above the sea)…

• One Head in a Bowling Bag: Marc Singer plays Jack Ford, a bounty hunter who specializes in tracking down illegal droids in the tough sea port town of Phoenix. Our first taste of Jack is him blowing the head off one of the droids allowing us to see for ourselves Jack’s reputation as a droid gunner. Jack throws the droid’s head in a bowling bag and pays a visit to the man who hired him for the job, a slippery fuck named Chew’bah (Robert Quarry), to collect his bounty. But we find out that Chew’bah isn’t the only one interested in employing Jack’s services. When Jack arrives home after a hard day of droid gunning and bounty hunting, he has a message on his answering machine (which in this movie were still a thing in 2077) to meet with Mr. Reginald at the Bennett Corporation. But before I get into what Mr. Reginald wants with Jack Ford, let’s meet our other main character…

• These Are the Droids We’re Looking For: Matthias Hues plays a smuggler named Hawks. Hawks was hired by Chew’bah to smuggle four female pleasure droids off the mining colony on Jupiter and take them to the underwater city of New Angeles at the behest of the man who calls the shots in New Angeles, Humberstone (Robin Clarke). To the outside world Humberstone has portrayed himself as an ultra-conservative with strong faith based beliefs and a man who exudes quality values. Humberstone has forced his clean living lifestyle on all the inhabitants of New Angeles… which in turn has created a huge market for things that are taboo. So the stolen pleasure droids are part of Humberstone’s plan to supply the sinful demand he created. When Hawks shows up with only three out of the four pleasure droids (he lost one when they stopped in Phoenix before making the underwater journey to New Angeles)… Humberstone is none too pleased and gives Hawks only a fraction of what the pleasure droids are worth, but he does allow Hawks to live and said if Hawks could track down the fourth droid he lost in Phoenix they could discuss Hawks getting the full price of the droids.

• The Pleasure Principle: As luck would have it, the reason Mr. Reginald of the Bennett Corporation called Jack Ford was because he wants Jack to track down the four stolen pleasure droids… droids that the Bennett Corporation created and droids that could do some damage if in the wrong hands. Mr. Reginald wants the pleasure droids returned intact, so he pairs up Jack with Bennett Corporation technician Beth (Rochelle Swanson, Deadly Outbreak). Beth has the skills to deactivate the droids without shooting their heads off Jack Ford style. Both Jack and Beth balk at having to work with one another, but they both realized they were stuck… Jack didn’t have the technical know how to complete the mission on his own and there was no way Beth was going to survive on the mean streets of Phoenix on her own. Of course the old “thin line between love and hate” comes into play and their repulsion turns into romance.

• Double Your Pleasure: When Humberstone gets word that there are some people looking for the pleasure droids he is in now possession of, he gets his boy Chew’bah to put a hit out on Jack Ford and Beth… but Chew’bah’s henchmen find out that killing Jack and Beth is easier said than done and instead it is the henchmen that end up dead. Jack is done playing games and he pays Chew’bah a visit… Chew’bah gets his but not until after he tells Jack about Hawks, the guy who smuggled the pleasure droids to Earth in the first place. Jack and Beth track Hawks down at a bar and what happens next is action movie magic… Jack and Hawks decide to work together to retrieve the pleasure droids and take down Humberstone. Which meant I got the Marc Singer/Matthias Hues team up I never even knew I wanted. Jack and Hawks hatch the perfect plan to infiltrate New Angeles by having Beth pose as the missing pleasure droid… it was a plan just crazy enough to work… but would it?

I know I clarified at the start of this review that Cyberzone was not a Cinemax production, but as I watched the movie and specifically the bevy of buxom beauties that bared their breasts, I could not help but think this is one action movie that would have fit right in after dark on Cinemax.

Cyberzone was far from a masterpiece but the heroic trio was a strong point. Marc Singer is an unsung hero… he contributed so much to the action and sci-fi genres over the years and it is a shame he often comes across as an afterthought. It is always a nice change of pace when the marvelous Matthias Hues gets a turn as a good guy and is allowed to show more of his personality. Rochelle Swanson’s character was a triple threat, possessing brains, brawn and beauty.

The weakest point of Cyberzone was an overall lack of action content… a little more action could have gone a long way, just like a few Bonus Bullet Points can go a long way…

• Hitchcockesque: Director Fred Olen Ray, loves to borrow a page out of Alfred Hitchcock’s playbook and give himself a small role in his film. In Cyberzone, he’s the guy who tells Jack Ford, who he mistakes for a new recruit on New Angeles’ security force, that he needs to be in uniform.
• AKA: Cyberzone is also known as Droid Gunner.
• Grammatically Correct Quote: “I don’t have time to bleed.” – Jack Ford. Was this an homage to Jesse Ventura’s grammatically incorrect quote from Predator, “I ain’t got time to bleed!”?
• Quasi Futuristic Building: The Bennett Corporation building was a familiar architectural structure that I recognized from some movies that we’ve already covered on the site like Cyber Tracker and Memorial Day. The building is actually The Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant and its quasi futuristic look has made it a favorite filming location for years.