text: Years after the fall of the last of the great corporations, the world has fallen into a new dark age where cyborgs are harvested for their parts. Cash, a female cyborg, travels to a wasteland doctor to receive news that she is pregnant. On the run from Recyclers (bounty hunters who hunt cyborgs), Cash tries to find her way to Cytown, the mythical refuge for cyborgs.<br /><br />"Cyborg 3: The Recycler" is the third (& last so far) entry in the CYBORG trilogy. The first film was originally planned to be a sequel to MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, but was quickly rewritten into a standard post-apocalyptic martial-arts fest that became something of a cult classic due to its cheesy action scenes. CYBORG 2: GLASS SHADOW was a sequel that actually improved upon its predecessor but was not widely seen (& was dismissed by those few who saw it as cheap fodder).<br /><br />This film, for one thing, tries to be a meld of the first two films (the first was a cheesy action film while the second was a smart Cyberpunk story) but unfortunately falls short on both counts. The budget was obviously lower than CYBORG 2, with the film being set in the desert wastelands (like so many post-apocalyptic action films of the 90s were), shot around old industrial buildings to conserve costs.<br /><br />The film's story centres on a plot device, that of a pregnant cyborg, that is as interesting as it is absurd (this film is not the first to try that idea; the anime OVA series ARMITAGE III uses it to a greater extent). But the film falls into the same trap that so many low-budget sci-fi action films fall victim to, in the fact that the snags (synthetic organisms) featured are nothing more than androids. The visual effects amount to nothing more than prosthetic arms & makeup effects.<br /><br />The acting is pretty standard for this kind of film, with the lead actress (Khrystyne Haje) being the single worst performer on display. Instead of being joyed at the news she is pregnant, she acts all whiny & sullen. Her co-stars are much better, Malcolm McDowell being the usual gangster type who enlivens the scenes he appears in & Richard Lynch has a lot of fun as the chief villain. Of particular note is Andrew Byniarski, playing Lynch's right hand man, who would later appear in THE Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake & its prequel.