Manborg

2011 sci-fi action comedy

Rating: 10/20

Plot: After a demon army takes over the world, a cyborg soldier leads a pack of resistance fighters.

The best part of this film might be at the very end--a trailer for a fake (I think) movie called Bio-Cop. That was funny.

I'm fairly impressed with what director Steven Kostanski and his team were able to do with such a limited budget, apparently a thousand dollars. There are a lot of visually interesting, even if they were also kind of ugly and/or gruesome, moments throughout this thing. This is one of those green-screen films, and it falls somewhere closer to the Amazing Bulk side of the spectrum rather than the Sin City or Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow side, but there are some gory effects and an arguably cool vibe created here. There were some nifty stop-animated creations, too. I mean, look at this bitchin' thing!

It's always a little too noisy, but I did kind of like overall look of this.

Unfortunately, there are characters, a story, and dialogue. Kostanski, probably knowing that he wouldn't get away with making a serious action movie, has about a 50/50 ratio of comedy and action, and the comedy just doesn't work nearly as well. There's an intentional 80's vibe here, and things just get way too campy as a kung-fu character named #1 Man has a dubbed voice that doesn't match his lips, characters throw out silly one-liners, and Manborg gesticulates in ridiculous ways. There's also a character who looks like Billy Idol. All the characters actually got on my nerves a little bit.

I was excited to see a little person, and so was another person who says, "I've got to go pet that little guy." Unfortunately, I realized after the first shot that he was a fake little person. Played by an apparently relative of the director, he was just made to look like he was a little person with the magic of special effects. That's disappointing!

At one point, a character says, "You're bonkers, Manborg." And Manborg is, indeed, pretty bonkers. There's a bit of fun in chunks if you have a high tolerance for this sort of thing though.