Cyborg 2

Angelina Jolie in Cyborg 2 as Casella "Cash" Reese.

Cyborg 2 was released in some countries as Glass Shadow. Cyborg 2 is a 1993 science fiction action film directed by Michael Schroeder. Cyborg 2 is the direct sequel to the 1989 film Cyborg. It is notable as the 1st film to feature Angelina Jolie in a starring role (Angelina Jolie had previously made one earlier film as a child actress). Cyborg 2 was followed by the 1994 direct-to-video release Cyborg 3: The Recycler.



Better than the original.,

Earth, 2074. The field of cybernetics is dominated by two corporations – Kobayashi Electronics & Pinwheel Robotics. The execs over at Pinwheel plan to destroy Kobayashi by sending in Casella 'Cash' Reese, a female cyborg containing 'Glass Shadow' (a powerful plastic explosive), to a conference & detonating her. With the help of Mercy, a mysterious cyborg who projects himself onto TV screens, Cash & her human combat trainer Colton Ricks escape the compound & flee across the city. With Pinwheel troopers & a psychotic bounty hunter after them, they attempt to make it to freedom.

CYBORG was a low-budget, mindless post-apocalyptic martial-arts flick that featured Jean-Claude Van Damme taking on numerous thugs & trying to rescue a female cyborg. It became a cult film & inspired two sequels.

While the first film was nothing more than a series of watered-down heroics that had almost no plot, "Cyborg 2: Glass Shadow" is the complete opposite, a futuristic sci-fi film with an intelligent storyline & a Cyberpunk atmosphere. It is also the rare occasion where a sequel proves to be better than the original.

"Glass Shadow" is set sometime after the events of the first film, although the continuity is somewhat screwed up (society had collapsed in the original & a nasty plague had swept through the world). The society here is akin to a corporate-run city, nothing like the original (there are a few clips taken from the original shown on TV screens). The storyline is quite simple – female cyborg is created as a walking bomb, said cyborg tries to flee her fate, her creators send in bounty hunters to catch her – but done in an intelligent manner.

The acting is superb, with due credit given to Jack Palance, who gives one of his best performances, as the cyborg warrior / poet who appears on TV screens like a ghost; Elias Koteas, who plays his role in deadpan fashion & Tracy Walter shines in a cameo as a doctor. Angelina Jolie, in the days before she became a superstar, gives a robotic performance as the cyborg Cash, although this fits in with the rest of the film. The visual effects in this film are excellent, most notably the opening scene with a cyborg being built, some prosthetics work & an exquisite model city.