Casey Chong with eight great cyberpunk movies that should be on your watchlist…
Cyberpunk movies made their mark in the early 80s with Ridley Scott’s seminal genre masterpiece Blade Runner, a milestone in not only in its visual style but its bleak depiction of urban dystopia and artificial intelligence. Subsequent popular cyberpunk movies like Akira, Ghost in the Shell and The Matrix successfully captured the essence of the subgenre, combining thought-provoking ideas and thematic subject matters with populist entertainment; however, plenty of cyberpunk films went under the radar or were largely forgotten after their initial release, and so here are eight cyberpunk movies that are well worth checking out if you haven’t already…
Hardware (1990)
The directorial debut of Richard Stanley, Hardware blended edgy sci-fi horror that doesn’t shy away from graphic violence with a bleak cyberpunk-style dystopia. The movie boasts a formidable killer robot dubbed M.A.R.K. 13, which looks like a cross between The Terminator and RoboCop 2, but this one is far from a knockoff thanks to its genuinely creepy presence and how Stanley manages to pull it off with better-than-expected special effects for an otherwise low-budget movie, which reportedly cost a paltry $1.5 million.
The writer-director also has an eye for both grungy and stylized visuals with a dash of Mad Max-like aesthetics. The movie equally deserves praise for its top-notch soundtrack boasting songs from Iggy Pop’s ‘Cold Metal’ (with Pop also showing up in a cameo appearance as Angry Bob), to Motörhead’s ‘Ace of Spades ‘and Ministry’s ‘Stigmata’.
Nemesis (1992)
Albert Pyun was pretty much a hit-or-miss filmmaker, but he did give us some notable B-movies, most notably Cyborg and Nemesis. The latter is the peak of Albert Pyun’s work and even though the movie borrows heavily from Blade Runner to The Terminator, it was consistently engaging for a B-grade movie.
Pyun made good use of several locations from Kaiser Steel Mill in Fontana, California to Old Tucson in Arizona to bring out the movie’s post-apocalyptic setting. The action is thrilling with the perfectly stoic Olivier Gruner leading Nemesis as the technologically-enhanced half-human, half-cyborg LAPD cop Alex Rain. The movie ended up with four inferior sequels, but none of them can hold a candle to this 1992 original.
SEE ALSO: Albert Pyun: The Trailblazing B-Movie Auteur
Split Second (1992)
Rutger Hauer was no stranger to the cyberpunk genre, having immortalized the antagonist role of Roy Batty in Blade Runner. Here, he played an antihero for a change – a disgruntled cop from the dystopian, flood-prone city of London who does things his own way. He’s on a quest to search for the elusive serial killer to avenge the death of his old partner.
The cyberpunk aesthetics are strictly B-movie style with some neo-noir touches and the movie is over-the-top in its genre mashups of cyberpunk elements, monster-movie tropes and psychological thriller but it’s fun enough, thanks primarily to Hauer’s committed performance. The movie even throws in a buddy-cop dynamic that pairs Hauer’s grizzled veteran cop with Neil Duncan’s meek, Oxford-educated partner. The action is surprisingly well-executed, given its low budget of just $7 million. Split Second barely recouped its budget at the time of its release but has since become a cult classic.
SEE ALSO: A Double Hit of Cyberpunk from 1992: Nemesis and Split Second
Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
A few years before Keanu Reeves re-defined his career in the sci-fi genre in The Matrix, he ventured into cyberpunk territory with Johnny Mnemonic. It marked music video director-turned-filmmaker Robert Longo’s only feature-length movie, with sci-fi guru William Gibson adapting his own 1981 short story of the same name, and the result is a purely 90s-time capsule of a cyberpunk genre: information overload, data breach, the use of virtual reality and a technological battle against the corporate-level conspiracy tied to the criminal organization, which in this case, the Yakuza led by Takeshi Kitano and Denis Akiyama.
Keanu is the right fit to play the role of an antihero and a data courier responsible for carrying his clients’ sensitive information. It is essentially a chase movie as Keanu’s titular character must avoid getting killed by the Yakuza and reach his destination. The special effects may look dated and the overall story is wobbly in places, but Johnny Mnemonic remains conceptually intriguing with a straight-up, B-movie vibe.
SEE ALSO: 2021 according to Johnny Mnemonic
Strange Days (1995)
Despite the involvement of James Cameron as both co-writer and co-producer, Strange Days failed to click with the audiences, grossing only $17 million on a $42 million budget, but this Kathryn Bigelow dystopian sci-fi thriller deserves better as the movie subtly blends intriguing 1992 Los Angeles riots-inspired sociopolitical anxieties, police brutality and the danger of shared memory. The latter refers to the introduction of a controversial device called SQUID, which records memories that transfer straight from the user’s cerebral cortex and onto a MiniDisc. This allows any person to purchase a specific memory and immerse in its sensory experience.
Ralph Fiennes seems like the last person you would expect to play a sleazy black-market dealer who sells SQUID recordings. And yet, he manages to pull it off and even pairs well with the typically no-nonsense Angela Bassett as his bodyguard and limo driver. The movie also slips in a murder mystery angle and not to forget, Bigelow’s knack for stylish and propulsive action set pieces including a nighttime car chase that ends up plunging into the waters.
SEE ALSO: Strange Days: A Must Watch New Year’s Movie
eXistenZ (1999)
David Cronenberg revisiteds Videodrome territory with eXistenZ starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law, offering thematic similarities from the effect of technology on the human body to the blurred lines between reality and virtual reality. The movie was notable for its outlandish creature design: a grotesque-looking, fleshy Sony PlayStation-like controller, complete with large nipples served as buttons; and a gun made from animal skin and bones with human teeth as bullets.
Cronenberg’s recurring subject matters on the dark side of human nature, sex, violence and body horror are intact, and so does his trademark cold and clinical direction that often defines his work. eXistenZ was largely passed over at the time of its release due to a certain cyberpunk hit called The Matrix, which captured the eyes of the mass population, leaving Cronenberg’s edgy virtual-reality thriller buried underneath. It’s worth re-discovering however if you haven’t seen it yet.
Sleep Dealer (2008)
Alex Rivera’s Spanish-language cyberpunk movie may lack a substantial budget and resources but his movie hits hard with the ever-topical issues of the migrant experience, capitalism, and class inequality. Rivera, who also co-wrote the screenplay with David Riker, imagines the oppressive future of the technologically advanced US government and how they exploit marginalized people, specifically the Mexicans through cheap labors. A fortified wall is built to shut down the US-Mexico border, preventing the Mexicans from entering, which eerily reflects the real-life sociopolitical issue nine years later.
Migrant workers like the movie’s protagonist played by the sympathetic Luis Fernando Peña hailed from the small town of Santa Ana Del Rio, are reduced to operating high-tech robot laborers in the US remotely at a Tijuana factory by attaching nodes to the brains and wrists. Sleep Dealer also deals with the controversial drone warfare and the corporate control over privatizing the use of water, resulting in some of the few strong social commentaries that dominate Rivera’s otherwise underappreciated feature, despite emerging as a Sundance darling after taking home the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award and the Alfred P. Sloan Prize.
Upgrade (2018)
The only time that Leigh Whannell ventured out of his usual comfort zone (read: horror genre) so far is the sci-fi action thriller Upgrade. The title in question refers to an ordinary guy played by Logan Marshall-Green as Grey Trace, who gets ‘upgraded’ after a revolutionary chip called STEM is implanted following a shooting incident that turns him into a quadriplegic. Not only does the chip enable him to walk again but also boosts his motor function both physically and mentally. Think of Upgrade as RoboCop, except the main character here isn’t a deceased police officer brought back to life.
Made on a measly $3 million budget, Whannell manages to turn this low-budget sci-fi into a lean and stylish action film. The fights are graphically violent and thrillingly choreographed. The story is simple but efficiently told since it’s all about Grey’s quest for revenge against the assailants who paralyzed him and killed his wife in cold blood. Whannell also leans into the pros and cons of technology in artificial intelligence without getting heavy-handed about it.
What are your favourite cyberpunk movies? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Casey Chong
