Cyber-C.H.I.C. (1990) User Reviews

Horrible. Just horrible.

[petekrug17 · 1/10 · 18 November 2003]

I've got a little confession to make. I'm one of the easiest-to-please movie goers out there. I liked BALLISTICS: ECKS VS. SEVER. I liked THE TUXIDO. I enjoyed MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE so much I saw it almost to the point of having it memorized. Hell, I was even entertained by JOHNNEY MENOMIC. So what does all this have to do with ROBO C.H.I.C.? (Or Cyber Chick or whatever) Just this: when I think a movie was hard to sit through and it's not some intellectual, artsy, slice-of-life film, you know it's BAD. Half of what makes it so painful to watch is the fact that the actress who plays the title character tries WAY too hard to act like an emotionless robot. (Maybe she should've just tried acting "normal", snicker.) The rest of the cast isn't much better, everyone tries to be funny and ends up just being annoying. Of course the film does try to be intentionally goofy, as a spoof of ROBO COP, it's just that it ends up being so in an irritating way instead of a genuinely funny, entertaining way. It's been years since I saw this so I can't remember much about the plot or so many of the things wrong with it, just the general way it made me felt. What's more, the only ways I would ever see this a second time was if someone stuck a gun to my head or eles offered me a minimum of a thousand dollars and I knew he was good to his word. AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!

GRAHHH!!!!

[nhlgumby · 1/10 · 29 October 2001]

Oh man, if there is ever a worse movie made, then somebody is going to have to die. This movie was so bad, it gave me a week of that feeling when you want to rip somebody's heart out. This movie deserves to die. Die die die die die!!!!!! If you ever find this movie in stores, take it out back, and beat the crap out of it until it doesn't even resemble a video. Only Hobgoblins can compare to how bad this movie was for me to watch. I believe it was like sticking a knife into my soul, and twisting it a quarter rotation every other second, on the second. Yikes did it ever suck. It's too bad that Burt Ward were to ever be affiliated with this horrible movie. I liked Burt Ward as Robin. He was cool then. But not now.

*urgh*

[knuthansenmp3 · 1/10 · 25 April 2005]

this piece runs in Germany as "thunder tronic" on the empire video label with the tagline "the ultimate challenge".

reading the cover lines with that terrorist-thing sounded well enough to take the tape and watch. I AM EASY TO PLEASE !!! but after 16 minutes i asked my self how to survive all 102 minutes. i mean, after a while you know that a movie is in a special way tooooo bad - it won't get better.

the story is so ridiculous, nothing fits, it isn't even funny. some bad movies are as bad so they get good again. not here. it is a pure waste of time. i liked the book-idea "how to build an atomic bomb" in relation with that bug hunting atomic terrorist nerd, even that idea got painful overdrawn over and over again later. the police department chief, the dogs, that dumb rocker-gang, the pimp, R.O.B.O.CAR and everything else - it could have been a nice one...

yeah... ultimate challenge... is surviving that 102 minutes...

is worth 10c to complete your label-collection or you like sado-masochism.

Wow!

[pen-cap · 1/10 · 1 May 2005]

This definitely takes the cake as the worst B-movie out there. As if someone made it over the weekend. I guess the ex-playmate does help, but I mean come on! Unless this is some tip-of-the-hat to pornographic cinematography, it's pointless! There were some jokes laden within the film that I laughed at, purely at the expense of the writers attempt at comic relief. Ya, and why is the movie called cyber-chic when the whole time in the movie she's called robo-chic? Whoops! Must have skipped that day in editing! The robo-car, here's another one that was hard to decipher as intentional, or just in line with the quality of film, a fiero with no hood or grill is supposed to be the modern marvel of robotic automobiles, Ha!

Interesting -- if you lived in Colorado Springs

[ed-421 · 4/10 · 20 June 2013]

For a movie night, my friends tried to pick one good movie (Amadeus), and one bad movie (this one).

And true to form, this film started out awful. One character had a long, rambling dialog that just went on and on.

We were about to end it, when one of us said "Hey! That's downtown!" And sure enough, downtown Colorado Springs, where we were living. For the rest of the movie, we were trying to outdo each other at naming where the scene was shot.

The "scientist" character was truly awful, and he unfortunately had most of the dialog. The other characters played it more campy, which made them more tolerable.

Ugg

[Hypno-2 · 1 June 1999]

Got to tell you this is one of the wost b-movies ever made. on my b-movie scale it gets a 3 for a couple of topless scenes but thats it. and those scenes arent much to give you a tiger of pleasure. please avoid

Erk

[pittlebelge · 1/10 · 9 February 2009]

One sunny afternoon, a couple of years ago, a friend of mine crashed at my place with a broad smile on his face. "I just bought a new movie, it looks like a stupid movie, let's watch it". 102 min later, we knew we did it, we saw what is probably the very worst movie ever-made and I certainly hope ever to be made.

Immage : bad, sound : bad, editing : bad, humor attempt : bad, chick : not naked, plot : still trying to figure out.

Nevertheless, i'm glad I saw it. Now, every other movie I see is just a little bit better : Once you've hit the bottom you can only go up.

To sum it all up I'll quote my friend :"So bad it is not even funny".

Thanks, Red Letter Media

[JoeB131 · 1/10 · 1 January 2015]

For pointing out this this actually existed.

So the plot is that a mad scientist makes a robot that look like one of two actresses, depending when the the scene was shot because the lead actress quit halfway through. Meanwhile, the guy who played Robin in the old Batman series has a plot to set off nuclear bombs.

The movie is set up of one sad gag after another, with people who can't act and people who didn't care. The acting is truly awful.

the problem with comedies is that you have to sustain an absurd premise for an hour or more. Good movies can pull this off. This one can't.

Nothing redeems this movie. Its not even funny in bad sense.

Never see it.

[tarbosh22000 · 2/10 · 9 April 2014]

When self-consciously "wacky" scientist Dr. Von Colon (King) creates a beautiful cyborg called ROBO-C.H.I.C. (Shower and Daly), he believes he has created the invention of the century. When she beats up some punks in an alley, the doctor realizes she can be used to fight crime. Meanwhile, a nebbish named Harry Truman Hodgkins (Ward) has claimed in the media that he has positioned a series of bombs and is going to set them off one by one. So ROBO-C.H.I.C. has to try and stop him, and meanwhile a criminal organization led by a guy named Quentin (???), as well as some bikers, are trying to stop ROBO-C.H.I.C. from depopulating their respective criminal organizations. Will you make it through to the end to see what happens? It's hard to tell who the intended audience for ROBO-C.H.I.C. is supposed to be. Just to be absolutely clear, this is not an action movie. AIP never should have released it. It's an insufferably unfunny so-called comedy, and why the filmmakers thought the predictable, hacky jokes would hit home with any audience remains frustratingly unclear. Imagine if the production staff of 80's sitcom Small Wonder attempted to make Robocop (1987). And it's even less funny than that would probably be. Of course, from today's perspective, the idea of a bomber who wants to slaughter thousands of people using homemade explosive devices doesn't scream out as being a rich vein for hearty comedic laughs. And the character was played by TV's Robin, Burt Ward, so he now has this embarrassment on his resume. Too bad he didn't follow the example of his pal Adam West, and appear in high quality productions in the 80's like Night of the Kickfighters (1988) and Omega Cop (1990) (cough!).

ROBO-C.H.I.C. is completely in keeping with our theory that bad movies are long movies. This whole annoying exercise in patience lasts an agonizing 102 minutes, and is irritating right up until the final second, just like an awful old vaudeville comedian that has to get the hook because he doesn't know when to get off the stage. Just like the old hokey comedian who is blatantly desperate for cheap laughs, ROBO-C.H.I.C. comes from that very same DNA of those old performers. 102 minutes. Inexcusable. 80 would have been pushing it for what would have been an intolerable 8-minute Saturday Night Live sketch. Or is that redundant? Regardless, the super-slow pacing, if it even deserves to be called pacing (calling it that would imply there is a pace, or at least one that anyone thought about), is the heart of the problem. It all moves at a torturous crawl. WHY is it so slow and long? Seriously! We demand answers! Another of our theories that this dreck is consistent with is the "two directors (or more)" theory. Not good. Even Kathy Shower, who is credited as a producer on the project, bailed, to be replaced in various scenes with one Jennifer Daly. One of the directors is Jeff Mandel, the writer/director of all-time AIP classic, Elves (1989), released the same year as ROBO-C.H.I.C. Talk about a schizophrenic career. He also wrote AIP entry Firehead (1991). In other behind the scenes news, the guy who played Dr. Von Colon is Chris Kattan's father. It must be genetic. This movie is so painfully bad, it will make you long for the subtle, biting, incisive comedy of Mango. And no amount of nudity can paste over the flaws of this turkey. But characters do smoke indoors and wear fanny packs, and you get to see the old Dunkin Donuts logo, so there's a bit of nostalgia there. But it's not nearly enough to recommend this crud. If you want to see a much better movie with a similar idea, check out Steel and Lace (1991).

On top of the humorlessness and snail's pace, the movie doesn't even seem to care whether it's good or not. The audience feels jerked around by a bunch of people who can't even put in any effort to care to make a halfway decent production. ROBO-C.H.I.C. is just so, so lame. Never see it.

Ugh

[BandSAboutMovies · 2/10 · 6 September 2023]

Directed and written by Ed Hansen (whose career includes Takin' It Off, Party Favors, Party Plane, The Bikini Car Wash Company, Hell's Belles, The Bikini Car Wash Company and editing episodes of The Bullwinkle Show and 9 1/2 Weeks) and Jeffrey Mandel (Super Force and way to bury the lead, the writer and director of Elves), Cyber-C. H. I. C. (or Robo-C. H. I. C. which is the better name and even better, itw as called Thunder-Tronic in Germany) is about Dr. Sigmoid Von Colon (Kip King) creating Robo-C. H. I. C. (Kathy Shower, Playboy's Playmate of the Month for May 1985 and Playmate of the Year for 1986., who appeared in a lot of stuff, including The Further Adventures of Tennessee Buck and Frankenstein General Hospital; later in the movie Jennifer Daly takes on the role) to fight the forces of bad.

In this movie, that bad would be Harry Truman Hodgkins (Burt Ward), a nuclear bomber planting death traps all over town. This movie is so bad that Shower, despite an Executive Producer credit, left before it was done. The one good thing is the joke that the biker gang is called Satan's Onions because of a printing problem.

In case you wondered, C. H. I. C. stands for Computerized Humanoid Intelligent Clone.

Also: Kip King was Chris Kattan's dad.

The idea of this is right. It was better done in Steel and Lace, so I hear, as well as Programmed to Kill, The Demolitionist, Lady Battle Cop, Robotrix and my beloved Vice Academy 2 and BimboCop.

Far better than expected!

[ohoholiver · 6/10 · 15 February 2024]

Was having a bad movie night with some folks when I got to see this little gem. Don't get me wrong, this is not a great movie, but it is a rare creature onto itself: a bad movie that's made with a sense of self-awareness of what it is and makes it work. Cyber-C. H. I. C. never takes itself seriously and, if you do, you're not watching it right.

It's silly, the dialog is ridiculous, the characters are over the top, and the acting is the perfect amount of stilted. Even the terrible "action" scenes (in which RoboCHIC casually shoves baddies) fits right in with the vibe of the movie. If you enjoy schlock like *Auntie Lee's Meat Pies* or *Attack of the 60ft. Centerfold*, you'll likely find Cyber-C. H. I. C. an entertaining couple of hours.