Aachi & Ssipak (2006)
Demented Korean Anime
South Korean anime that is set in a future world where people are obsessed with shit. This comes with a demented energy and a filthy-mindedness that is determined to outrage
Cyborgs
A cyborg is a human (or in some cases alien) whose body has been replaced by mechanical parts. In its generalised usage a cyborg has come to mean someone who has used mechanical replacements for damaged parts or to enhance their abilities. The Transhumanist movement has embraced the possibility of cyborg replacement and refers to it as Augmentation.
On screens, we have had a range of cyborg heroes and superheroes ranging from The Six Million Dollar Man to RoboCop. The 1980s gave us a whole slate of evil cyborgs or action films with cyborgs battling in post-apocalyptic futures. The Cyberpunk Films genre depicts futures where such enhancements has become commonplace.
Alice (2009)
SF Version of Alice in Wonderland
Following on from his reworking of The Wizard of Oz in Tin Man, this is a tv mini-series where Nick Willing rather fascinatingly reinterprets Alice in Wonderland in SF terms
Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
Cyborg Girl/Manga Adaptation
What was once a planned James Cameron adaptation of a manga about a cyborg girl is now brought to the screen by Robert Rodriguez but it is hard to say what an underwhelming disappointment the result is
American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (1992)
Post-Holocaust Cyborgs
A routine post-apocalyptic action film with Nicole Hansen as the last fertile woman on the run hunted by killer cyborgs while being protected by Joe Lara
Appleseed (2004)
Anime/Future Anti-Terrorist Squad
A dazzling reboot of the earlier manga/anime made with stunning photorealistic animation design and breathtaking action scenes that made this a benchmark for modern anime. Sequels followed.
Appleseed Alpha (2014)
Anime/Post-Holocaust Cyborg Action
Shinji Aramaki returns to the Appleseed franchise for a third time with this prequel. Though it abandons the Cyberpunk milieu, Aramaki crafts action scenes with a stunning realism
Appleseed Ex Machina (2007)
Anime/Future Anti-Terrorist Squad
Shinji Aramaki’s immediate sequel to his reboot of the Appleseed franchise. This lacks the visually stunning qualities of its predecessor and seems more conceptually muddled but Aramaki eventually gets it together
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Marvel Comics Superhero Team-Up
Marvel conclude the cliffhanger they left Avengers: Infinity War on and offer up a bigger-than-big line-up, overspilling with just about every MCU character to ever appear on screen up to that point
Battlefield Baseball (2003)
Combat Baseball/Gonzo Japanese Film
Japanese film clearly inspired by Battle Royale that has a wonderfully appealing premise where a high school baseball game that has been turned into a deathsport
The Beyond (2017)
Mysterious Portal Appears in Earth Orbit
A highly ambitious film about a mysterious alien portal that appears in Earth orbit and the attempts to explore what is on the other side
Beyond Skyline (2017)
Alien Invasion
Skyline was a modest alien invasion film; this is a long-planned sequel. The new director has simply turned it into an action film and tediously deals with every alien encounter with gunfire, stunts and explosions
Black Panther (2018)
Marvel Comics Superhero
The most successful Marvel Comics adaptation of all-time up to that point. Enjoyable if I fall short of calling it the best Marvel film ever and its receiving a nomination for a Best Picture Academy Award
Black Road (2016)
Near Future Film Noir
Near future set science-fiction noir as a cyborg-enhanced hero is drawn in to conduct an investigation on behalf of a morally ambiguous femme fatale. Despite a reasonable effort made, this is a little too low key
Bloodshot (2020)
Augmented Super-Soldier/Comic-Book Adaptation
That starts out seeming a standard mindless action film in which Vin Diesel is resurrected as an augmented super-soldier only for everything we assume to get turned on its head in interesting ways
Bloody Chainsaw Girl (2016)
Chainsaw-Wielding Schoolgirl Battles Mutant Cyborgs
Another of the gonzo Japanese splatter films about a schoolgirl who tries to go about her schoolday while fighting off mutant cyborgs with the chainsaw she carries
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
War Between Comic-Book Superheroes
Less Captain America 3 than The Avengers 3 – the entire film has been conceived as a massive superheroic punch-up. The results move with an exhilarating pace, but the Russo Brothers haven’t yet mastered Joss Whedon’s hand with character humour
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Comic-Book Superhero
Captain America’s second solo outing feels more like a Mission: Impossible film or an episode of 24 than a superhero film. Lots of Marvel continuity and fanservice and you are taken aback at how political it is prepared to be
The Car: Road to Revenge (2019)
Possessed Car
The Car concerning a possessed car is one of the forgotten films of the 1970s. Why it has produced a sequel 42 years later is a scratch of the head. Not that the two films even resemble one another
Circuitry Man (1990)
Cyberpunk/Post-Holocaust Quest
Qurkily appealing Cyberpunk film in which a female bodyguard and a male pleasure android must make a journey across a post-apocalyptic wasteland
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)
Anime/Future Bounty Hunters
The feature film spinoff of a cult anime tv series
Cyber Tracker (1994)
Action/Killer Law Enforcement Cyborg
Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson stars as a law enforcement officer pursued by killer androids in a blatant made-for-video action movie copy of the basics of The Terminator and RoboCop
Cyborg (1989)
Post-Holocaust Kickboxing
The first of Albert Pyun’s kickboxing killer cyborg films featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme who was largely unknown at the time. Pyun creates wall-to-wall action but there is almost nothing else to the film
Cyborg2: Glass Shadow (1993)
Cyberpunk
Sequel that abandons that mindless chop suey of Albert Pyun’s Cyborg and reconstructs it into a halfway reasonable Cyberpunk film. A then unknown Angelina Jolie plays the cyborg
Cyborg3 (1994)
Cyborgs on the Run
The second of Michael Schroeder’s sequels to Albert Pyun’s Cyborg both of which are better than the original. This does interesting things with the hokey idea of a pregnant android.
Cyborg 2087 (1966)
Cyborg from the Future
The film that inspired The Terminator! Michael Rennie plays a cyborg who travels back in time to prevent a machine-dominated future coming about, while being hunted by two killer androids sent back to stop him
Cyborg Cop (1993)
Action/Killer Cyborg
A low-budget action copy of RoboCop starring David Bradley as a DEA agent up against drug lord John Rhys-Davies who has transformed his brother into a cyborg
Cyborg Cop II (1994)
Action/Killer Cyborgs
From the height of the 90s RoboCop copycat video release, a sequel that this time pits DEA agent David Bradley up against an army of rogue cyborgs
Cyborg She (2007)
Romance With a Time-Travelling Cyborg
A Japanese romantic comedy about a lonely nerd who falls in love with a cyborg girl that has time travelled back from the future
Cyborg X (2016)
Post-Holocaust Cyborg Wars
From Arrowstorm Entertainment, a low-budget company that make highly professional films. Here they have even roped Danny Trejo into playing a role in a passable attempt to replicate a 1990s Albert Pyun post-holocaust cyborg film
Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966)
Doctor Who Film
The second of the theatrically released Doctor Who films intended to highlight the popularity of The Daleks, this is an improvement over the first film in that it dispenses with the buffoonish comedy elements
Deadpool 2 (2018)
Marvel Comics Superhero
Deadpool was an hilarious breath of fresh air amid the Marvel Comics adaptations. This sequel is even better, with the self-deflating, fourth-wall breaking humour even funnier and more slickly polished action
The Death of Superman (2018)
Comic-Book Superhero/Animation
The Death of Superman is still is the top-selling comic-book title of all-time after 25 years. This was the first half of a two-part animated adaptation of the storyline, which brings it to life with a fair and reasonable telling
Defcon 2012 (2010)
After an Alien Invasion/Mayan End of the World
Amateur low-budget production about mysterious happenings in the aftermath of an alien invasion. This has many ideas but none of them much coalesce into a plot
The Demolitionist (1996)
Female Cyborg Cop
Nicole Eggert stars in this cheap and rather laughable copy of RoboCop, where she is a police officer killed in the line of duty who is resurrected as an avenging cyborg vigilante
Dr Who and the Daleks (1965)
Doctor Who Film
This was the first of two Doctor Who movies produced during the height of Dalekmania during the 1960s. Alas a comedy element in the form of the asinine buffoonery of Roy Castle is allowed to dominate and kills the show off
Doomsday (2015)
Time Traveller Come to Save the Future/Killer Cyborg
Not to be confused with Neil Marshall’s Doomsday. This is a surprisingly good, low-budget British SF film that serves up the essential plot of The Terminator but with a number of clever touches of its own
Downdraft (1996)
Amok AI/Nuclear Threat/Action
Modest and conceptually packed B-budget action film in which a motley team are sent to break into a bunker that has been hijacked by a scientist who is threatening to fire nuclear missiles
Earth Star Voyager (1988)
Space Expedition
TV mini-series that came out hoping to ride the coattails of Star Trek: The Next Generation but looks dated barely ten years later. Somehow the idea of teenagers on a space mission didn’t get many audiences enthused
Eliminators (1986)
Action Team vs Mad Scientist
One of the more enjoyable films from Charles Band’s Empire Productions, a comic-book of a film that assembles an action team of various abilities on an adventure up against a mad scientist
The Exterminators of the Year 3000 (1983)
Post-Holocaust Action
An Italian exploitation film that blatantly copies the plot of Mad Max 2. It offers the benefit of some vigorous action scenes and English-language dubbing that is out of this world
Fortress (1993)
Future Prison
Stuart Gordon, a cult director on the basis of Re-Animator, ventures into making an SF action film set in a futuristic prison. The film has a bone-headed script that feels like it is only rehashing cliches from every SF film
Frankenpimp (2009)
Gonzo Exploitation Homage
Possibly THE worst film ever made. Tony Watt throws an mash-up of exploitation elements together in an incomprehensible plot. A film that made me want to hammer a nail through my eyeball rather than keep watching
Frankenstein Unlimited (2009)
Anthology of Frankenstein Short Films
A series of short film interpretations of the Frankenstein story, with interpretations ranging from BDSM to kung fu and modern police procedural
Frankenstein’s Army (2013)
Found Footage Frankenstein Film
One has difficulty with the notion of a Found Footage Frankenstein film, although the film does credibly justify this. That said, the film offers up a series of genuinely phantasmagoric and out of this world creations
Full Metal Yakuza (1997)
Yakuza Cyborg
An early work from Takashi Miike, an ultra-violent comic-book variant on RoboCop about a Yazkuza enforcer who is incarnated in a cyborg body and goes seeking revenge
Future-Kill (1984)
Killer Cyborg
Low-budget attempt to make a Cyberpunk film. Essentially The Warriors with New Wave fashions as a group of frat boys are pursued by a relentless, psychopathic cyborg
Galaxy Express 999 (1979)
Anime Space Opera
Classic anime space opera adventure made not long after Star Wars and filled with moments of glorious visual poetry including the conceptually absurd image of a spacegoing train
Ghost in the Shell (2017)
Live-Action Anime Adaptation/Cyberpunk Future
This US-made live-action adaptation of the cult anime is a disaster on every level. The original’s haunting meditation on the dividing line between machine and human is diluted to being no more than a Cyberpunk action film
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)
Cyberpunk Anime
Mamoru Oshii’s follow-up to Ghost in the Shell where he makes a work that pushes both an artistic envelope at the same time as taking his philosophical fascination with the Cyberpunk world to a stunning level
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Cyberpunk Anime
Classic anime from Mamoru Oshii, a Cyberpunk work with a heroine who is a cyborg special forces officer, a work that delves deeply into the philosophical questions of what is human and what is machine
Ghost in the Shell: Arise (2013-2014)
Cyberpunk Anime
Reboot of the Ghost in the Shell series in a quartet of prequel stories. This funnels the essence of Cyberpunk superbly, creating a dazzling world with cyborgised security services fighting terrorists hacking people’s brains
Ghost in the Shell (2015)
Cyberpunk Anime
Another anime film in the Ghost in the Shell franchise. This was the fifth episode of the Ghost in the Shell: Arise reboot series that received a theatrical release
Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah (1991)
Japanese Monster Bash
The eighteenth Godzilla film and one of the best of the modern era. This has the most conceptually audacious plot of any Godzilla film and overflows with wild ideas involving time travel and changing the timeline
Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 (2023)
Marvel Comics Adaptation/Space Opera
Third of the Guardians of the Galaxy films, this successfully recaptures the nature of the goofy ensemble comedy caper that made the first film such a winner but seemed to be missing in the second
Hard Revenge, Milly (2008)
Gonzo Japanese Splatter Film/Near Future Revenge
Ferociously entertaining Japanese film about a cyborg-enhanced heroine on a revenge trail. Mostly a series of ridiculously over-the-top action moves combined with copious degrees of blood
Hard Revenge, Milly: Bloody Battle (2009)
Gonzo Japanese Splatter Film/Near Future Revenge
Full-length follow-up to Hard Revenge, Milly and the same mix of ferocious action and over-the-top splatter. Despite a large budget, this is marginally the lesser in sheer entertainment
Hardcore Henry (2015)
Cyborg/First Person Action Film
An intense kick of pure adrenaline. Imagine a version of The Six Million Dollar Man shot First Person Shooter style by hyper-adrenalised parkour junkies dragging the audience through a series of death-defying stunts
Heatseeker (1995)
Cyborg Kickboxing Competition
Another of Albert Pyun’s cyborg films set around a kickboxing competition where Pyun seems to have cut costs by using real competition footage with dramatically dull results
I, Robot (2004)
Robots Amok/Isaac Asimov Adaptation
Disappointing adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Robot stories. The film pays token acknowledgement to Asimov’s characters and universe and mostly seems interested in spectacular effects set-pieces
iBoy (2017)
Teen Gets the Power to Mentally Access Internet Traffic
A British film about a teen who gets a cellphone embedded in his head and develops the ability to tap into cellular and internet traffic. The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes with an admirably gritty edge
I’m a Cyborg, But That’s Ok (2006)
Woman Believes She is a Cyborg/Gonzo Asylum Comedy
After the ultra-violent Oldboy, Park Chan-wook puzzled everyone by next making this frothily surreal comedy about a girl in an asylum who believes she is a cyborg
Infra Man (1976)
Hong Kong Superheroics
A deranged madcap film from Shaw Brothers with a superhero fighting off a bizarre menagerie of alien monsters
Injustice (2021)
Animation/Comic-Book Superheroes
Alternate world take on DC Comics continuity where Superman snaps and creates a totalitarian police state and the other superheroes align to stop him
Inspector Gadget (1999)
Cyborg Cop/Cartoon in Live-Action
A live-action adaptation of the popular animated series, one of the spate of such films that came out after the live-action The Flintstones. Amiably silly and frequently slapstick fun that proves to be exactly what one expects of it
Inspector Gadget 2 (2003)
Cyborg Cop/Cartoon in Live-Action
Video-released sequel to the live-action Matthew Broderick film, this is played as much more of a cartoon and amped to a maximum level of slapstick inanity
Iron Girl: Ultimate Weapon (2015)
Cyborg Bounty Hunter
Japanese film about a cyborg-enhanced bounty hunter chick. Sort of like RoboCop but played with a softcore focus
Jason X (2001)
Slasher in Space
The tenth Friday the 13th film. This tries to add novelty as Jason is thawed out in the future aboard a space station to slaughter anew. Featuring David Cronenberg as a victim
Justice League (2017)
Comic-Book Superheroes
Zack Snyder completes his run through DC superheroes with mixed results. The introduction of the characters works well but Snyder too readily throws established continuity out the window, while the visual dourness becomes tedious
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (2020)
Animation/Comic-Book Superheroes
Essentially the DC Comics animated version of Avengers: Endgame where they put every superhero under their roof on screen at once, including Justice League Dark, the regular Justice League, Suicide Squad and Teen Titans
Justice League: Doom (2012)
Animation/Comic-Book Superheroes
A relative disappointment among the mostly excellent animated DC superhero films, this offers up far too diagrammatic and dramatically underdeveloped a pitting of each Justice League member with a matching super-villain only to seemingly kill them off
Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox (2013)
Animation/Comic-Book Superheroes/Alternate Timeline
Ar DC Universe animated film set in an alternate timeline where the histories of various familiar DC characters have turned out radically different. A film that works through a strong, intelligent story and the shock of seeing familiar characters turned on their heads
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis (2015)
Animation/Comic-Book Superheroes
Not so much a Justice League film as an Aquaman origin film, which at least conducts a character oft regard as a DC laughing stock with suitable dignity. I’m not a big fan of The New 52 continuity rewrite and this follows suit with fairly middling results
Justice League vs Teen Titans (2016)
Animation/Comic-Book Superheroes
One of the DC Universe Original Animated Movies. Though sold as a Justice League film, this principally serves to introduce the Teen Titans to the animated universe. Despite your expectation of a very crowded film, this works well with its juggle of characters
Justice League: War (2014)
Animation/Comic-Book Superheroes
Another of the DC Universe Animated Films that rewrites the Justice League into DC’s New 52 continuity reboot. The New 52 was more a marketing exercise than anything and this changes the character’s origins and designs to little point
Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)
Spy Film/Comic-Book Adaptation
Kingsman with its witty parody of gentlemanliness and action movie sensibilities, was the smartest of the modern spy movie parodies. This sequel feels like it has gone from Austin Powers for grown-ups to the excesses of the Roger Moore Bond films in the space of one film
Knights (1993)
Post-Holocaust Kickboxing Cyborgs
Another of Albert Pyun’s post-apocalyptic kickboxing cyborg films. The film has no plot and consists of almost nothing but action scenes
The Last Sentinel (2007)
Programmed Soldier
Action film with Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson as a cyborg soldier fighting a one-man war against rogue police drones of the future. Fairly generic assemblage of cliches
The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time (2018)
Storm of Sharks/Deliberately Bad Film
The sixth and last of the Sharknado films, this has the usual crew fighting sharknados throughout history with the recognition there is nowhere more ridiculous and over-the-top for the series to go
LunarCop (1995)
Post-Holocaust Action
Low-budget Mad Max copycat action film with Michael Paré from the lunar colony who comes to Earth to take on the marauders of the post-apocalyptic wasteland
The Machine (2013)
Android Artificial Intelligence/Mind Upload
A fascinating and well told work about artificial intelligence and mind upload. If the third act falls into disappointingly cliched patterns, this is nearly three-quarters of a strong and intelligent science-fiction film
Manborg (2011)
Cyborg Hero/Deliberately Bad SF Film
Produced on a budget of $1000, this is a miracle of no-budget filmmaking. Intended as a homage to/parody of 80s/90s cyborg action films, this contains some extremely accomplished effects posing and a sidesplitting ear for the era’s dialogue cliches
Meatball Machine (2005)
Gonzo Japanese Splatter Film/Bio-Mechanoid Creatures Battle
In the late 2000s, Japan has produced a series of films drenched in gore, featuring ridiculously absurd creature effects and action moves; this was the first of them – drawing from the Tetsuo films, this is a wonderfully cartoonish film with rival bio-mechanoid creatures fighting it out
Meatball Machine: Kodoku (2017)
Gonzo Japanese Splatter Film/Bio-Mechanoid Mutations
Meatball Machine was a film filled with bizarre bio-mechanical transformations battling it out. It started off the gonzo Japanese splatter genre, filled with mind-boggling mutations, over-the-top splatter, a surreal sense of humour and an obsession with schoolgirls in panties. This is a sequel. directed by that film’s effects creator
Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983)
Planetary Adventure
Early Charles Band exploiting the mid-80s 3D revival fad. The film is a cheap planetary adventure that feels like a magpie collage of other SF films around at the time, most notably Star Wars and Mad Max 2
The Midnight Club (2022)
Teenagers Tell Horror Stories
Mike Flanagan horror mini-series adapted from Christopher Pike’s book, this is set around a group of patients in a hospice who form a group to tell each other horror stories
Mortal Engines (2018)
Post-Holocaust World of Mobile Cities
Peter Jackson written-produced film that creates a fascinatingly original world. As always with a Jackson film, all the fun is in the massively scaled effects sequences and the design of the world. Alas, Jackson is not as well attuned in the story department, which often drags up corny cliched scenes
Mortal Kombat (2021)
Interdimensional Combat/Videogame Adaptation
Reboot of the videogame-adapted film series emerges as a kinetic and enjoyable effort clearly designed to introduce an ongoing franchise
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)
Interdimensional Combat/Videogame Adaptation
Sequel to the Mortal Kombat film. While the first film was fun, here anything resembling plot has been stripped away to concentrate on fight scenes slung together in the most linear way possible such that the film blurs into a single shapeless action sequence
Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms (2021)
Animation/Interdimensional Combat/Videogame Adaptation
The second of the Mortal Kombat animated films
Natural City (2003)
Cyberpunk Future/Androids
Wrongly referred to as an adaptation of the original Philip K. Dick’s
Nazis at the Center of the Earth (2012)
Nazis Under the Polar Icecap/Hitler with a Robot Body/Mad Science
Hands down the best film ever produced by The Asylum. How could one not like an entertainingly madcap concoction that features mad scientists, zombie stormtroopers, Nazi UFOs and Adolf Hitler preserved as a head in a jar attached to a robot body?
Nemesis (1993)
Cyberpunk/Cyborg Takeover
Albert Pyun’s finest film. It is another of his standard killer cyborg films but comes with an often hauntingly written gritty Cyberpunk edge that makes it quite unique
Nemesis 2: Nebula (1995)
Time-Travelling Killer Cyborgs
The first of several sequels Albert Pyun made to Nemesis. This copies The Terminator with bodybuilder Sue Price being pursued through East Africa by killer androids
Nemesis 3: Time Lapse (1995)
Time-Travelling Killer Cyborgs
The third of Albert Pyun’s Nemesis films about time-travelling cyborgs – not much plot just action scenes and some moments of undeniable strangeness
Nemesis 4: Death Angel (1996)
Cyborg Action
Another of the string of cyborg action films that low-budget director Albert Pyun made in the 1990s. This has a head-scratching fascination, featuring very weird cyborg sex scenes, the unearthly bodybuilder heroine Sue Price and a series of strange philosophical ruminations
Oblivion (1994)
Western on an Alien Planet
One of the best films from Full Moon Productions that locates a Western on another planet and manages a perfectly pitched homage to either genre
Project: Metalbeast (1994)
Cyborg Werewolf
Typical 1990s video-released effort that stands out by dint of a far-out idea – a cyborg werewolf – even if in the end the film does nothing with it and everything only boils down to a standard monster movie that takes everything from the Alien playbook
Prototype X29A (1992)
Post-Holocaust Cyborg Wars
Warring cyborgs in a burned-out future. Standard 90s direct-to-video SF/action where not a lot happens
Rebel Moon – A Child of Fire: Part One (2023)
Space Opera
Zack Snyder returns with a work that is all but a Star Wars film in name where he draws heavily on the basics of The Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven
Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver (2024)
Space Opera
Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon was intended as a two-part space opera saga. This first half emerged watchably and this is Part Two