The Raunchy, Extremely R-Rated Robot Uprising Movie That Runs On Broken Legs

The premise of this movie has legs, but I’d be lying if I said they weren’t broken.

By Robert Scucci
| Published 1 hour ago

1991’s Cybernator is an absolute mess of a film, but if you’re into sci-fi B-movies with no critical score on Rotten Tomatoes and only a 40 percent popcorn meter across fewer than 50 reviews, you’re in for a treat. The premise of this movie has legs, but I’d be lying if I said they weren’t broken. If you can get past the tonal inconsistencies, laughably bad special effects, and an antagonist who looks like he spends his spare time in an industrial nu-metal cover band, there’s still a certain charm that’s impossible to ignore, and it mostly comes from Lonnie Schuyler’s performance as Brent McCord.

There are still great one-liners, and if you squint just hard enough, there are plenty of things to enjoy about Cybernator. It’s just hard to call it a movie because it plays more like a hodgepodge of vaguely related scenes with no real sense of cohesion.

“Some Of My Best Friends Are Toasters, You F***!”

Cybernator starts out like a neo-noir buddy cop film, but quickly shows its dystopian sci-fi side. When we’re introduced to Brent McCord, he’s the coolest cop on the block. He’s got a stripper girlfriend named Blue (Christina Peralta) and a partner who always has his back named Jim Weaver (Jeff Jenkins). His captain chews him out for stepping out of line but lets it slide because he gets results. Basically, Brent McCord is one badass dude living in a world that’s about to be overrun by robots known as Cybernators.

While we’re on the subject of Cybernators, I’m not exactly sure what their threat is. A bunch of robots start committing crimes, seemingly led by an alpha unit known as Captain Hair (Michael Foley), who is basically a guy with a white-painted face and hair that looks like vinyl tubing you’d buy at Lowe’s. When two rogue robots disguised as everyday people get shot up, the coroner explains in painfully specific detail that these “men” have been enhanced with cybernetic technology created by the military.

McCord and Weaver press their captain about their lead because they think they’re onto some kind of government conspiracy, but they’re told to tread lightly. They don’t, and Weaver meets his maker. Primed for revenge, McCord has a prolonged sex scene with Blue before taking matters into his own hands, only to find out that Captain Hair isn’t the big boss. That would be Colonel Peck (William Smith), who tells Captain Hair that McCord is like a brother to him. That’s it. There’s no real explanation for what he’s doing or why, and we never learn what “like brothers” even means.

After getting blackmailed by government officials, McCord has no choice but to take down the Cybernators as a lone wolf, but he’s beyond pissed because they’re holding Blue hostage as collateral until the job is done.

A Tragically Missed “Damn, He’s Good” Opportunity

My biggest beef with Cybernator is that Brent McCord has the potential to be a supreme B-movie badass. You see flashes of that “damn, he’s good” personality you get in your John Wick films, and in just about every Steven Seagal movie ever made, because Steven is a legend in his own mind and wants everybody on Earth to know it. Seagal’s overblown on-screen persona has led to several hilarious late-career clunkers (I’m looking at you, Half Past Dead!). McCord, portrayed by Lonnie Schuyler, is wasted potential for the kind of schlock and awe that would have landed if the film leaned into it harder.

Early on, it’s clear that McCord follows nobody’s rules but his own, and that’s why I stuck around and actually finished this movie. I kept waiting for him to unleash the beast when properly provoked, and it does finally happen in the third act. What bothers me is that it doesn’t feel earned. His partner is dead and his girl is compromised, sure, but the screenplay never builds to his final rampage in a way that feels justified.

McCord should have either started out more badass and stayed that way, or had a more severe breakdown that pushes him toward a cathartic final showdown. Instead, it feels like somebody flips a switch and we’re suddenly dealing with two different protagonists. That said, McCord is a blast when he’s in his element because he doesn’t care about authority. He just wants to take out the big bad and ride off into the sunset with his girl.

Long story short, Cybernator is not a great movie. It’s a fun late-night watch when you’re feeling a little loopy, but beyond that it feels incomplete. If you’re into that kind of thing, like I most certainly am, you can stream it for free on Tubi as of this writing.