Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

A really, really long time ago me and my boy Orlando went to the show to catch this movie called ‘Money Talks’. It was not a good movie. I will always remember that movie because that is the day that my friend Orlando fell in love. Stacey Dash was in that movie and no doubt Ms. Dash was looking good in that movie, so good in fact that after seeing that movie my friend Orlando made it his life’s mission to find Stacey Dash so he could let her know how he felt about her so they could start their glorious life together. As you can clearly see Orlando had some serious mental challenges to overcome during this time in his life. Sadly that Orlando / Stacey chapter would never get written but here we are damn near twenty years later and in that time Stacey Dash has made more suspect films, discarded three husbands, birthed three children, run through numerous hip-hoppin’ boyfriends but amazingly through all of that and all of those years the woman looks the same. Maybe even a little better. She looks so good in this awful movie ‘Cyborg Conquest’ that you are inclined to think that her listed age of forty four might be incorrect, but I know it’s correct because I remember Stacey, as grown woman in 1988, playing Richard Pryor’s daughter in that movie ‘Moving’. True enough none of this worthless prattle has anything to do with this movie ‘Cyborg Conquest’, and while the movie itself might not be all that good, Stacey Dash sure is fine in it.

A collection of the worlds hottest biker chicks bust in a bank, steal the loot, and sequester themselves away in a nearby pub to down a few before they head off to Mexico. At this bar Layla the hothead (Eliza Swenson) gets pissed off at a boozed up, rude local and shoots him dead, much to the dismay of their leader, the unnamed ‘lady’ (Dash). The odd thing about the dead boozer is that he seems to be made of cybernetics. Damn if our heroines haven’t busted up a bar full of cybernetic organisms. Not only is the bar full of cyborgs, this entire city that they are in is populated with nothing but cyborgs. After a standoff with this town’s cyborg cops, some of our girls get away, some get snatched up and detained and some get tragically get killed. Damn Stacey sure was looking good in them jeans.

These cyborgs are the brain child of Evil Genius Dr. Elliot (Paul LeMat), who we shouldn’t confuse with the term ‘Mad Scientist’ as deftly explained to us by the Doc’s lackey Blaine (Brent Lydic). Doc has a rather insidious plan he plans on executing with these cyborgs of his while Lady just wants to bust up in the Doc’s scientific hideout and retrieve her girlfriends. Envy was what I felt towards that tight fitting tank top Stacey was wearing.

Soon the lady realizes that this thing is way bigger than just setting her girls free. Justice and equality are on the line which I think is important to the lady since she keeps flashbacking to some old dude talking to her about justice and equality. Or something. So the groundwork has been rather clearly laid out. We have a nice collection of hot chicks, some random dudes they have picked up along the way, a bunch of guns, a big robot and a virtual army of green eyed nuclear weapon enabled robots. I think I need to call Orlando because I’m pretty sure he would like an application to become Husband Number Four.

So this film was directed by my main man Leigh Scott. We’ve seen quite a few Leigh Scott directed joints though I don’t think we can say we’ve seen a ‘good’ Leigh Scott movie as of yet but in his defense all of these previous movies were made when he flew under the banner of The Asylum. The thing is we can’t blame this one on The Asylum. If you were to tell me that you were making a B level movie that featured hot chicks, lots of guns and plenty o’robots then I’m thinking we got a can’t miss proposition here but somehow ‘Cyborg Conquest’ missed and missed badly. How did this happen?

There were some good things in this movie, and you know we like to focus on the positive here at the FCU. I don’t know if I mentioned this but Stacey Dash was looking really good in this movie. Just like Frida Farrell was, just like all the ladies in this movie were looking good. The acting was above average for this type of flick, the special effects might’ve been extremely suspect but not distractingly so and they kind of melded into the whole B-Movie vibe anyway.

Despite these positives there are numerous issues that doom this poor little movie that really is trying its hardest not to suck. For starters the story supporting this nonsense is wildly unfocused and fractured. Almost as if certain parts of this movie are just missing. There were actually a few scenes in this movie that looked like certain actors were supposed to be their but weren’t, for whatever reason, which I’m sure didn’t help matters. This might’ve also led to elements being introduced into this flick and then just forgotten or just plain left dangling which gave us a movie that had a sense of pacing that just felt ‘off’. We spend way too much time watching our hot chicks stand around and just look at each other doing basically nothing, with all of this stuff eventually adding up to a movie that was dull. A movie with hot chicks, robots, guns, car chases, hovercraft chases, death, destruction and nuclear explosions should be anything but dull, but there you go. About an hour in this movie did get a little better as it kind of worked its way out of its doldrums, but only a little better.

I know I shouldn’t be disappointed by these little poorly made movies but I am, mainly because we don’t require much over here to be entertained. A guy whose been doing this for a long time directing a bunch of veteran actors who’ve been doing this for a long time should somehow produce a better movie I’m thinking. But what the hell do I know? Nothing, that’s what.