Cyborg Collector’s Edition Blu-Ray Review: Classic Van Dammage

My memories of Cyborg are not from watching it, although I know I rented it once. My memory is that in 1989 my cable system just got pay per view and I would watch the preview channels. The Cyborg trailer was in heavy rotation and it pretty much included all the fight scenes.

Watching Cyborg now was essentially like watching it for the first time, but I was still waiting for those trailer moments, particularly the villain bragging that he likes the misery.

Director Albert Pyun keeps the pace up. Even though this is not his preferred cut, it moves from location to location. It’s essentially nothing but fight scenes. There may be 10 minutes of exposition and flashbacks to Gibson (Jean-Claude Van Damme)’s family, tops. It’s a limited cast but the gang of bad guys keeps coming until Van Damme can take them all out.

I’ve certainly never seen Cyborg looking this good. The post-apocalyptic streets look pretty gritty and packed with detail. The beads of sweat on Van Damme’s face soak the screen. The hi-def clarity is more than my young pay-per-view mind could have dreamed.

There’s a full hour of outtakes from Electric Boogaloo. It’s nice to hear Pyun speak so positively about Cannon. Most interviews in the documentary were so negative. He shares some details about Cannon’s Spider-Man plans I’d never heard before too. Sheldon Lettich has some details about how Van Damme fixed the editing of Bloodsport. I’d always heard he recut it but these are specifics.

Pyun’s commentary goes into more detail about how he rewrote the script from Chuck Norris to Van Damme and more about what Masters of the Universe 2 could’ve been. He explains how Cyborg 2 and 3 happened without him. It’s really a lovely package for a movie that’s not among the regulars mentioned regarding Van Damme.