Manborg Review

Movie: Manborg
By:
Date: February 21, 2013

Revenge of the Future is Back

What would you get when you mix: Terminator, Machine Girl, Power Rangers and Blade Runner? Well... Manborg! The people of Astron-6 tried to make this as authentic as it could be to a 80's VHS science fiction movie. You know what to expect if you have seen Father's Day. Astron-6 is here to stay!

After nearly being killed during a war against the humans and the armies of hell, a young man (Matthew Kennedy) awakens to find he has become a half-man, half-cyborg living in a futuristic dystopia that functions as hell on earth. With a chosen band of imprisoned human vigilantes, Manborg fights for justice and revenge against the society that created him while making his way closer to Count Draculon, the ruler that also killed his beloved brother. In his quest of revenge Manborg cuts, schoots and slices up his enemies.

Let me be clear on this one, if you don't like the trailer or you don't give this a chance, then leave it! There is no point in watching this if you aren't open towards it. It's a full-on 80's homage, including all the low-fi effects, masks, stop motion and cheesiness. Manborg borrows from almost all big sci-fi movies, like: Terminator, Robocop, Eliminators, Blade Runner and Machine Girl type of movies. It's something straight out of the 80's with bad green screen action going on in the back and even worse acting. Dubbed-over voices add more to the cheesiness that the movie provides. You can clearly see that the creators of the movie have love for the era and even mimics from Mortal Kombat with their Lui Kang look-a-like fellow.

All in all everything leads up to a great experience of nostalgia, but it shows some great silicon masks and some great visuals for the gore and dystopian future. It shows how creative the Astron-6 team really is and it shows their love for the 80's movies. The movie is full with one-liners which in some case are a hit, but mostly miss and in this lies the downfall of the movie, you wouldn't care what happens to the characters. They are trying to suck you into the story, but just fail in all ways. Some say it's too bad the movie had only a running time of 65 minutes, but I disagree. I am glad they pulled the plug in time.

But if you are like me, you would forgive them for it and just enjoy it for what it is. The intentionally bad dubbing and exceedingly cheap computer effects make sure you will keep watching, either in disbelieve or of enjoyment. Manborg could have been a lot better, in the end it's script is just too meager to really make it a full length feature movie. As I do like the little throw-backs to all the movie influences, I personally think it was a bit too much, because by doing this, the essence of the Manborg movie isn't around enough and relies too much on the things that already have been done. But make sure you keep watching until the end, where you get the faux-trailer of Bio-Cop!

Manbord is a creative piece of cinema and in the end can only be enjoyed by the ones that are known to the VHS subculture of that time. While I see the love and all the good things, I can't close my eyes to the bad script and poor character quality. The movie is limited in it's audience range, but give it a shot. For me Astron-6 nailed it again and with only a budget of 2500 dollars, be impressed.