MANBORG (2011)

DIRECTED by  Steven Kostanski.

SCREENPLAY by Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie.

STARRING - Matthew Kennedy as Manborg,  Adam Brookes as Dr. Scorpius and Count Draculon,  Meredith Sweeny as Mina,  Conor Sweeny as Justice,  Ludwig Lee as Number One Man (voice dubbed by Kyle Hebert),  Jeremy Gillespie as The Baron,  Mike Kostanski as Little Guy.

PLOT  - It is the future and mankind is at war against the forces of Hell who are invading our world via a dimensional breach. Led by the evil Count Draculon, the denizens of Hell are tearing apart our once beautiful planet. On the field of battle a young soldier sees his brother brutally killed by Count Draculon, he swears vengeance but he is no match for the evil undead warlord and he too quickly dies by Draculon's hand. As the soldier breaths his last, his broken body is scavenged from the battlefield by unseen hands...

Several years later, the soldier awakens, resurrected from the dead as a cyborg. He is augmented with battle armour and inbuilt weaponry. He is a man...he is a cyborg...he is Manborg.

Manborg finds that in the intervening years since his death, the forces of Hell have won the war. Earth is now a poisoned, ruined wasteland covered in vast Megacities, it's terrified human population slowly dying, ground under foot by Draculon's troops. Manborg is soon captured and taken to a prison where he meets Number One Man - a deadly martial arts expert, the sharpshooting street thug -Justice, and his sister the beautiful and deadly Mina. Manborg and his new friends must fight in the Mega-Death Arena for the amusement of thier captors.

Can Manborg and his friends survive the dangers of the arena and escape to take the fight to Count Draculon and his Nazi army from Hell ? You bet they can...

DIALOUGE  - Dr. Scorpius - "You've got a lot of killing ahead of you...good luck."

PERFORMANCES  - To say that the cast of Manborg are not professional actors but are all a group of enthusiastic amateurs, they put in surprisingly good performances. All have thier tongues placed firmly in thier cheeks but that's the whole point of the film, its not to be taken remotely seriously, its just good fun and you can see the cast are all having the time of thier lives.

Matthew Kennedy as Manborg is like a cut price Peter Weller in Robocop, he utilises similar stiff robotic movements and to some extent puts on a Robocopesque voice when speaking. It works though, coming across as both a loving tribute to the earlier classic whilst having fun with the inherent ridiculousness of that film's overall concept. Kennedy also adds a sense of vulnerability to the character making Manborg somewhat loveable as well as being an arse kicker of the undead.

Adam Brookes plays two roles. Firstly he's Dr. Scorpius. At first you assume he's a villain as he appears to be on the Count's payroll, a human being who has sold out his fellow man to save his own skin. However, he later turns out to be the man responsible for the creation of Manborg, looking to build a walking weapon capable of saving the Earth. Later still, Scorpius is killed but comes back as a sentient hologram to mentor Manborg on his quest to stop Draculon. In the process becoming an almost Obi-Wan Kenobi type of figure. He's actually quite a three dimensional character for this type of film and Brookes brings a sense of world weariness to the role as he looks to atone for his part in the world's downfall. Brookes also plays the main villain Count Draculon - a throughly two dimensional villain who is a lot of fun to watch regardless. Brookes is unrecognisable under the Draculon makeup and has an intimidating presence. He's very effective.

Manborg's supporting cast of allies all work well too. Ludwig Lee as Number One Man works well as your typical martial arts fighter, an arena champion with deadly moves. He looks like he's walked straight out of a Street Fighter video game. He even has a dubbed voice in the style of 70's and 80's martial arts movies, it's silly for sure but adds to the level of trashy charm that the film is aiming for. 

Conor Sweeny looks like a poundland Billy Idol playing the role of Justice. He's an Australian street punk who happens to be a dab hand with a laser pistol. Justice is initially mistrusting of Manborg but eventually comes to accept him as a friend and a hero, he even seems to develop a bit of a man-crush on the cyborg and gets very emotional around him as the story progresses. There's a nice subplot about Justice being unable to read. It's not important to the overall story but it does serve to make Justice into a more fully rounded character. Sweeny plays the role well and has the potential to develop into a decent actor I think. Sweeny's real life sister, Meredith, plays his onscreen sister Mina. This helps the chemistry between the two by adding a level of realism to the proceedings. Meredith Sweeny is also very good, Mina is a tough arse kicking heroine who has been traumatised by her past and covers it up with an edge of bravado, also, don't annoy her when she's got a blade in her hands...

By far the best performance though is Jeremy Gillespie playing The Baron. The Baron is Draculon's right hand man and chief jailer of the prison where those entering the Mega-Death Arena are held. He is ruthless and sadistic and has also developed a crush on Mina. It is this which makes him such a great character. His clumsy attempts to chat up the uninterested Mina are hilarious and he gets some brilliant lines in the process. - "When you're friends have all been destroyed we'll have to meet up - I've got my own Nightmare Chamber" or the classic line "They called you prisoner number seven...but to me you where always prisoner number one" Awww...bless him.

SFX - Considering this movie was made for the paltry sum of only $1000, the special effects are a visual delight. Much of Manborg was filmed in Kostanski's parents garage, the futuristic cityscapes and neon lit back alleys where added in afterwards by Chroma Key. The result gives the film an unusual otherworldly look and feel which works nicely.

There are also many, many good old fashioned practical special effects, including some excellent stop motion animation for Draculon's war droids.

It looks like something that Ray Harryhausen would have done, and I sincerely mean that as a massive compliment.

SEX & VIOLENCE  - Manborg features lots of O.T.T comic book style violence, There are some good gore effects as various Nazi uniformed denizens of Hell are sliced, diced, blasted and chopped by Manborg and chums. Great stuff.

RATING  - Manborg has a lot of charm. It's fast, exciting, funny and at only 71 minutes long it doesn't outstay its welcome. It's got a lovely comic book feel to it and with its enthusiastic performers giving it thier all, the film sucks you in and gets you to enjoy the silliness of it all. It's as cheesy as hell and its supposed to be, it's a love letter to the sci-fi action movies of the 80's. This is exactly the sort of thing kids would have rented from thier local videostore back in the day, drawn in by the garrish cover art and stills on the back. Unlike many of those films though, upon seeing this the audience wouldn't have been disappointed. It delivers all the mad thrills and spills that they would have been looking for.

Manborg is testament to the power of the low budget film maker with nearly zero cash and lots of imagination. It's a miniature camp masterpiece and it's very look, feel and scope is miraculous considering how little it cost to make. Overall  - 5 cyborg warriors out of 5.

Stay watching after the end credits as well because you get a "fake trailer" for another "upcoming" movie - Bio Cop.

Bio Cop is the story of a cop mutated by a chemical spillage. As a result he cannot die but seems to be constantly melting as a result. It's basically The Incredible Melting Man meets Robocop and its both hilliarious and sick at the same time. Its a lovely little treat to round off the viewing experience of Manborg and I hope Kostanski and Co. make it into a proper film one day.