The film starts with ten minutes of exposition and the unlikely appearance of Faye Dunaway. Provided by Alex Newman in the role of “scientist who doomed the whole planet and feels really quite miffed about it”, it lays out the pros and cons of the next 80 minutes for all to see. Lots of ideas, lots of stylish 2ks cybergoth imagery, CGI that looks like it was originally a PlayStation cut-scene, and not quite talent to reach it’s highly ambitious goals. Frankly, it’s a bit of a mess; but there is an undeniable something that makes you carry on watching to see where it goes.

Part of that something is the presence of Bai Ling, staring as some sort of freelance-government-police-assassin-something whose job is to kill rampaging unconvincing monsters whilst not wearing much and being far more oiled up than you would expect such a job to require. Director Pearry Teo does their best to make it a pure exploitation role for her, but she manages to get an incredible amount of subtilty and emotion out of scenes that involve her standing there in not much. She also kicks arse in a very convincing manner, which is doubly hard when her wardrobe is a mix of CyberDog, overly complicated fetish wear, and New Rocks.

The other part of it is her screw-up small time criminal brother, played Parry Shen. There is an undeniable raport between the two characters, and a part of me wishes the film had focused on those two just trying to get through living in the apocalypse. The tension of her trying to keep him on the straight-and-narrow is enthralling, and I could have watched that play out for the full run of the film without the wonder-widget even having to appear. Plus Daniel Zacapa does a blinder of a job as the local crim kingpin, both when tormenting Shen and when being on the end of one of Ling’s arse kickings.

On the plus side, the McGuffin does bring Newman and Ling together and the narratively inevitable romance actually works as it leans into them both being emotionally cut-off and exhausted people. Again; this should be cheesy exploitation cinema, designed purely to get Ling to show he boobs, but somehow it makes you feel something real and precious is happening. Well, up until the point she shows her boobs and you realise for all the positive efforts it’s determined to hit it’s teenage boy audience square in the id like an extra-large packet of Pop Rocks in a can of Monster.

Visually, this is one-note-fits-all. Everyone is decked out in contemporaneous industrial clubbing gear, and everything looks like it’s been sprayed down with grease (especially Bai Ling, which gets distracting and hilarious in equal measure). The motif is “The Matrix meets The Crow on some MCat”, with a fair bit of Blade Runner added on top. It’s the aggregate of every Cyberpunk work made before it, with a touch of bio-punk thrown in for marketing distinction. How much you like that depends on how much you like the cyberpunk genre, so I was very satisfied with what they attempted even if most of it was achieved with a grey filer.

Musically, it’s aggrotech from start to finish. Combichrist is especially prevalent, partly because this film doubled up as the shot for one of their music videos and mostly because their grimy obnoxious tunes really work with the film overall. A couple of other bands turn up, and it’s all the kind of sweaty filth that adds to the ambiance. Again, if that doesn’t appeal to you then the lack of variety is just going to annoy you.

Eventually the plots complete and we get a final ten minutes that are as rushed and gabled as the exposition that kicked it all off. You won’t feel much emotional release as it’s all about showing off how shiny the background concepts are. This again highlights how good the middle 70 minutes could have been if they hadn’t mucked around trying to sell the dull technobabble saga, but apparently, it’s vital to the few people who read the comic it’s based off. It then ends, either enigmatically leaving the door open for a sequel that you know won’t happen or just fizzling out with more waffle.

Is it a great film? No, in many ways it’s technically incompetent and bite of way more than it could chew. But that in itself gives it a rather charming attitude problem, and it’s not like it’s not constantly trying to be dark, meaningful, and entertaining. Not every film has to be amazing, and sometimes just having a crack and being mostly okay, with the odd moment of unpolished gold, is enough to get you through a viewing. It’s a Treasure for it’s audacity and it’s accomplishments, for embracing the cliché and trying to push it further than anyone has done so before.

The Raggedyman