Eyeborgs (2009)
Distributor: Momentum
DVD Release Date: 20th June 2011
Directed by: Richard Clabaugh
Starring: Adrian Paul, Megan Blake, Luke Eberl, Danny Trejo
Review by: Ben Bussey
It’s the near future, and the USA is yet again in a state of high alert. Terrorism, crime, disorder and all that jazz have resulted in the passing of the Freedom Of Observation Act, which legally feeds every sound and image from every recording device in the country into a single national security dubbed ODIN; the Optical Defence Intelligence Network, naturally. It’s where the cops and the courts get their evidence. But as well as those old players, there are some new guys on the law enforcement scene; fleets of surveillance robots, essentially CCTV cameras on legs, whose name you may have already ascertained from the title. But how do we know that the images they show are the absolute truth…? And what if… gulp… these little robots didn’t just make videos, but killed stuff too?
Damn, where was this concept about twenty-five years ago? If I could have given one piece of advice to director/co-writer Richard Clabaugh before he went into production, it would have been this: fuck CG, this one has to be stop-motion. The Eyeborgs belong in that same charming, clunky mode of animation that gave us ED-209, the At-Tat Walkers, and of course those big bad brawling machines of Robojox (or Robot Jox, as we in Britain know it, for some unknown reason). For them to be realised via clean, sleek CGI; it just feels wrong, and robs the whole endeavour of so much of its potential charm. Still, it’s very much second rate Sy-Fy movie CGI, so that goes some way to making amends.
However, don’t be fooled by the presence of killer robot eyeballs with spider legs, nor the fact that the lead is played by the guy from Highlander: The Series, nor the presence of a cameo from Danny “I take the bit parts Sam Jackson used to take” Trejo. This isn’t just another dumb-ass straight to DVD sci-fi B-movie; this is a dumb-ass straight to DVD sci-fi B-movie with… another gulp… a social conscience. Not content to give us murderous miniature robosapiens, Clabaugh and company also want to give us food for thought, presenting us with a vision of a possible future which in many respects isn’t too implausible. For of course, like pretty much all science fiction of real value, Eyeborgs is really about what’s happening in the world right now rather than what might happen in years to come. And in these days of media manipulation, the proliferation of surveillance and governments thinking nothing of infringing the civil liberties of their citizens, all in the name of national security, maybe it’s not so unlikely that little robot eyeballs could be walking around on spider legs scoping us out…
It may already be apparent where the real problem lies with Eyeborgs. It hinges on a fairly absurd device, yet aims to tackle serious issues. Is such an approach feasible? Absolutely. Let’s not forget our aforementioned friend ED-209, the star of that impeccable balance of sci-fi spectacle and social commentary that is Robocop. And what a movie Eyeborgs could have been if Clabaugh had taken a more Verhoeven-ish approach; more larger-than-life characterisations, more visceral death scenes, more arch satire. Ten to one says Verhoeven would have taken more advantage of the voyeuristic potential of the premise, too, which Clabaugh only touches on lightly.
Ultimately, the whole thing is played a little too straight for my liking, and as such it falls awkwardly between posts, too silly for serious sci-fi (sorry, SF) devotees, but not silly enough for lovers of DTV trash. Don’t go in expecting much and you won’t be disappointed, but I doubt anyone will be holding this up alongside The Matrix, They Live, Brazil and other such totaliterian nightmare movie classics.