The Film (3/4)

Michael Rennie (Day the Earth Stood Still) who is no stranger to playing visitors from either another planet or from the future stars as cyborg Garth A7. He time travels from 2087 to present day 1966 to stop Professor Sigmund Marx (Eduard Franz, Twilight Zone :The Movie) from revealing his new scientific breakthrough, which is one that will make mind control possible and lead to very grim future. It would lead to a small evil ruling class and a world with no free thoughts. Garth A7 isn’t the only being from the future that has gone back in time to 1966; he is being chased down by two government agent cyborgs, called “Tracers” who want to stop him from reaching out to Dr. Marx to prevent this catastrophe.

Wendell Corey (Rear Window) is the sheriff in town who eventually helps Garth A7 along with Dr. Sharon Mason (Karen Steele, Marty) and Dr. Carl Zeller (Warren Stevens, Forbidden Planet) to stop the Tracers. There’s a fun climactic fight scene in a barn with Rennie’s double and a tracer that has to be seen to be believed.

Franklin Adreon, who also directed of Dimension 5 later the same year, gets plenty of mileage from the cast and keeps the story moving along but I honestly just felt the Cyborg 2087 was just a mediocre movie.

The story is good; it was written by Arthur C. Pierce who wrote several great science fiction B movies such as Mutiny in Outer Space, and seems to be somewhat of an inspiration to The Terminator which had a very similar story, but with a much bigger budget and better director. The performances in Cyborg 2087 are decent but the movie isn’t over extravagant and the execution isn’t the greatest, however, it’s still an entertaining if minor science fiction thriller. Michael Rennie seemed to be going through the motions and uninspired about his role in this film. Out of all the actors, Karen Steele seemed to have the most energy with Warren Stevens being a close second. Wendell Corey plays a very droll sheriff.

Some of the music from Cyborg 2087 later turned up two years in George Romero’s original 1968 horror timeless classic Night of the Living Dead. You will recognize the score as soon as it hits.

Audio/Video (4.5/5)

Kino Lorber boasted a newly remastered in HD release of Cyborg 2087 and the results are excellent. Shown in its original aspect ratio of 1:85:1, in 1080p, with an MPEG-4 AVC encode, Cyborg 2087 simply looks spectacular. Colors are very strong, with warm reds and oranges, beautiful blue skies and great scenery.  Details are excellent with great details. Close ups of the characters look really strong as well. Film grain is present throughout the film.

The English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio is more than serviceable for this release. The dialog, music, ray guns all sound pleasant with the scores being the most aggressive. No drop-offs or other issues were encountered.

Extras (1.5/5)

There is an audio commentary track with filmmaker Chris Alexander, along with five movie trailers.

Overall (3.5/5)

If only the film was as good as it looked in HD, Cyborg 2087 could be one fantastic release! There is no question that many die-hard science fiction film fans will find this more enjoyable. While I did enjoy the film to some degree, I didn’t ‘fall in love’ with it. But I did love the way the film looked and sounded. It might be light on extras but at least there are supplements to be entertained by. Highly recommended !