Shotaro Ishinomori’s long-running manga series 009 Cyborg has had many incarnations in its near 50-year history including several movies and two anime television series.
This latest version of the story, directed by Kenji Kamiyama (Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Eden Of The East) sees humanity’s protectors re-assemble to halt a wave of suicide bombing attacks on skyscrapers across the globe.
There doesn’t seem to be a connection between the perpetrators apart from the hint that they may all have had divine inspiration from ‘His Voice’ – could this be the voice of God, and why has leader of the group, cyborg 009 (Mamoru Miyano), started to hear it too?
009 Re: Cyborg delivers some beautiful animation and tightly choreographed action but hits a brick wall when it needs to explain itself, which is often. Plodding amateur theological discussions see characters throw out Freud references to give the illusion of depth, just don’t look too closely or you’ll see the joins.
You can admire the filmmakers for trying to update a Cold War story for a post 9/11 world but 009 Re: Cyborg is a film that flirts with bigger ideas rather than doing anything inventive with them. It gives in to pretentious, over-yet-under-explained dialogue and stupendously silly monologuing scenes which border on cringe worthy, leaving what could have been an interesting examination of the construct of God and the human mind is lost in a haze of theological pomposity.
009 Re: Cyborg will be on release across the UK in both 2D and 3D, however be warned as 3D and subtitles proved to be not the best of mixes.
