Cyborg Cop 3 (aka Terminal Impact)

CYBORG COP 3 (aka TERMINAL IMPACT) (1996)

Directed by: Yossi Wein
Screenplay: Dennis Dimster Denk & Jeff Albert
Starring: Frank Zargarino & Bryan Genesse

Wow, the Cyborg Cop series actually made it to three films? Well, sort of. Cyborg Cop 1 & 2 were moderately entertaining action, sci-fi B-movies produced by Nu Image and starring B-movie actor David Bradley (Hard Justice). The third instalment is actually a Nu Image action film, Terminal Impact, renamed Cyborg Cop 3 for the international market to cash in on the home video success of the first two. Yes, they were actually big sellers. Alas, there are no cyborg cops in Cyborg Cop 3 (making the title pointless, though come to think of it Terminal Impact doesn’t make much sense either) just two wisecracking cops (Zargarino and Genesse, who are actually Federal Marshal’s, making the cop in the title even more pointless) who have to stop an army of cyborgs cooked up by the evil Deltatech corporation.



For a mid nineties Nu Image film, Cyborg Cop 3 looks pretty good and is fairly well made. The set up is all kinds of ridiculous, a seeming mish mash of Lethal Weapon and Cyborg, but there are lots of boom, bangs and brawls. Zargarino and Genesse (the 90s Nu Image go to guys who are reunited after the superior Night Siege) crack wise, spend a little too much time together shirtless and look buff in the action scenes. They aren’t bad and play the old good cop bad cop routine well and do the best they can battling cyborgs mixed with insect DNA. Yep, mixed with insect DNA. Like I said, all kinds of ridiculous. South Africa stands in for America, poorly; Jennifer Miller plays the nosy reporter investigating Deltatech, poorly but sure looks nice; and there are plenty of cyborgs walking around with hi-tech hardware blowing things up. Now, that’s more like it.



The action is competently handled if not always edited to maximum effect. Explosions galore with everything and everyone blowing up come the second half with some neat chases and gunplay mixed in between. A shoot-out in a police station and another in a scrap yard are the best of the bunch with much crunching, smashing and shooting going on. Cyborg action films, especially of the straight-to-video variety, were de-rigour during the nineties and while not the best (Albert Pyun’s Nemesis takes that title), Cyborg Cop 3 or Terminal Impact or Federal Marshals do battle with Cyborgs or whatever it’s called, is a fairly decent slab of robot action and worth a watch or two.