In my twenty years of life, I have come across many foreign films and felt differently about each region. I've seen films from Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, Australia, China, Thailand and Japan. Any major country names I might have forgotten?
Oh, yeah… Canada.
Ever since learning about my not-so-distant roots of being French-Canadian myself, I've realized that I have exposed myself to more Canadian entertainment than I initially knew. Cartoon Network shows Canadian cartoons like the Total Drama series, 6teen and League of Super Evil. If anyone remembers those shows, especially League of Super Evil, props to you. However, I don't think I have ever seen a Canadian film. If I have, it was probably only half-Canadian. So, out of curiosity, I went to MovieStop to see what I could find. And boy, what did I find…
Manborg is a 2011 Canadian sci-fi action movie, directed by Steven Kostanski, that tells the story of a man who awakens to find he has turned into cyborg. Manborg (no joke, that is his name) quickly learns that the world has fallen under the rule of Count Draculon, leader of the Nazi vampire force from Hell. Along the way, he teams up with a cocky gunslinger named Justice, a young girl named Mina and a martial arts expert named Number One Man, who has a voice equal to a bad dub of a Japanese anime.
From the start, this movie makes about as much sense as a donkey attempting to master the unicycle. The martial artist couldn't have a more clever name? They could have used Babel Fish, typed in a random adjective that describes his character, and called it a day like a fan-fiction writer. Oh wait, that requires thinking, which is something Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie seem to forgot about doing when they were writing this flick. About every piece of dialogue comes out like an endless supply of fat cheeses and seems to unintentionally make the movie funny. I couldn't even take the montage scene seriously because of the little Ewok-Yoda hybrid character. And all of this is exactly why I think this movie is brilliant.
What's that? You were expecting a bad review on a bad sci-fi movie? Well, sorry, this isn't the "Whiny Nerd Tribune." There are good things to say about this movie.
Manborg seems to present itself as something I call an “I Don't Know" movie. The “I Don't Know" movie is a bit confusing to get a hold of when it comes to thinking about the filmmaker's intentions. Sure enough, Kostanski confuses the blazes out of me with Manborg. Despite being a movie from 2011, all of the costuming, visual effects, and most of the set designs are done D.I.Y. style and chroma key. Combine that with the cheesy writing, and Manborg can create two different perspectives.
Perspective #1 presents Manborg as a movie that takes itself seriously and wants to be taken seriously. The very few number of critics that have reviewed Manborg seemed to have watched it through this perspective. They've criticized the incredibly cheesy dialogue, but proceeded to praise the costumes and set design.
However, I chose Perspective #2, which shows Manborg as a satire of every sci-fi action movie from the 1980s. Throughout the movie, there is a heavy use of neon lighting (used in overdose on the opening credits, too), and the dialogue is so bad, it comes off as insanely funny. My biggest laugh came from the scene where Manborg meets Number One Man. He finds a few vampire soldiers beating an innocent citizen. Once spotted, the vampire soldiers tell Manborg to “Halt!" to which Manborg replies with a simple “Nope!" and walks away. Speaking of vampire soldiers, doesn't “Vampire Nazi soldiers from Hell" also qualify as something from a bad 80s movie? Overall, everything that makes the movie bad seems to be that way on purpose, serving as a spoof to horrible 1980s cult cinema.
Whichever way you may look at it, Manborg is one of those movies that is open to interpretation. You can take it seriously, and possibly hate it, or you can have a fun time and subject yourself to the ridiculous cheese fest.
Manborg is one of those movies where you will be gambling with your time. So, if you're on a tight budget, and a $7.99 copy from MovieStop is too steep for you, maybe ask a friend if you two can watch Netflix for a night and share this movie with them.
