When it comes to post-apocalyptic movies, Mad Max is near-enough unbeatable. Yet, for those with a keen interest in martial arts cinema who are after something equally dystopian, there’s one early Jean-Claude Van Damme movie that just might compare with Australia’s most famous wasteland vigilante. Van Damme’s 1989 cyberpunk martial arts movie Cyborg might not be able to stand up to Mad Max in of story and style, but its main character, Gibson Rickenbacker, might just give Max Rockatansky a run for his money.

Just as Mad Max is set in a fictional near-future world in which human civilization has collapsed, Cyborg’s world is plagued by a deadly virus that’s near-enough wiped out humanity, barring some pockets of mercenary pirates out for blood. While Max Rockatansky relies on his vehicles to give him the brute horsepower needed to face down enemies, however, Gibson Rickenbacker has nothing but his own body – and his unrivaled prowess in hand-to-hand combat – to fall back on. In this way, the martial arts mastery of the Muscles from Brussels makes a welcome addition to the cyberpunk action subgenre.

Cyborg Is Like Mad Max But With Martial Arts

The Movie Blends Apocalyptic Dystopia With Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Unique Talents

Whereas the Mad Max movies sees the titular anti-hero chase down his enemy with scintillating four-wheeled speed, Cyborg makes an art form out of post-apocalyptic combat. At the start of the movie, it appears that its characters are looking for the information they need to develop a cure for the pandemic that’s threatening the entire existence of humanity. Instead, much like Max Rockatansky’s deadly obsession with avenging his family in the first Mad Max film, Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Gibson Rickenbacker is out purely for vendetta.

It was the biker gang of Crawford "Nightrider" Montazano that murdered Max’s wife and family, while Rickenbacker is after the mercenary pirate gang of Fender Tremolo, who murdered his lover. Both Max and Gibson are ultimately wandering vigilantes concerned primarily with survival and revenge, as becomes evident in Cyborg when Nady Simmons and the titular robotically-enhanced scientist Pearl Prophet encourage Gibson to them in their effort to cure the plague tearing through humanity. He has little interest in this heroic quest, preferring to fight it out with Fender until one of them is dead.

The title character in Cyborg isn't Gibson Rickenbacker but Pearl Prophet, a scientist tasked with journeying from Atlanta to New York to get the scientific data needed to cure the plague afflicting humanity. Before the start of her journey, Pearl is enhanced with robotic characteristics so that she can defend herself from violent mercenaries and pirate gangs.

Gibson’s thirst for vengeance leads to some wonderfully stylized fight scenes, including one four-minute sequence in which he and Deborah Richter’s Nady take down several of the pirate gang with nothing more than a couple of pocket knives to hand. We see flashes of the Muscles from Brussels at his best, with his fast hands in full flow, and some of the coolest spinning kicks in any Van Damme movie. Most impressively of all, the actor performs the splits to agonizing perfection while balancing on top of a doorway, before bringing his sword down onto an unsuspecting enemy’s head.

Cyborg Is One Of Jean-Claude Van Damme's Best Early Movies

Only His Martial Arts Classics Bloodsport & No Retreat, No Surrender Can Match It

With its mix of dystopian plot, post-apocalyptic settings, cyberpunk aesthetic and hand-to-hand guerilla combat, Cyborg offers more for genre enthusiasts than most other early Jean-Claude Van Damme releases combined. Perhaps Van Damme’s breakout American-made martial arts hit Bloodsport, and his debut film in a credited role, No Retreat, No Surrender, could compare with Cyborg in cinematic .

It must be said that the fight scenes in those two even earlier movies are superior to the ones in Cyborg. At the same time, Cyborg is a more expansive production in other ways. The movie’s commitment to the cyberpunk subgenre, with its mechanically-enhanced humans, its hero’s journey built around scientists retrieving the information needed to save humanity from a huge scientific database, and its retro-future costume designs, set it apart from any other Jean-Claude Van Damme movie of its era.

The movie certainly doesn’t have Mad Max’s slick pacing or stunning cinematography, but then Mad Max has a young Mel Gibson, rather than Van Damme in his pomp as a big-screen martial artist. In any case, Cyborg is clearly a cut above the other Van Damme action flicks of its day.

Cyborg Has 2 Sequels, But Neither Compare To The Van Damme Version

Angelina Jolie & Malcolm McDowell Aren’t Enough To Save Cyborg 2 & 3

When it was released in 1989, Cyborg did well enough at the box office – and then on home video – to warrant consideration for a sequel. The aesthetic appeal of the movie’s post-apocalyptic setting also piqued the interest of both sci-fi and Van Damme fans at the time, as demonstrated by the comic book that was created to go along with the video release.

Four years after the original, Cyborg 2 arrived, set 80 years in the future and starring a young Angelina Jolie alongside Elias Koteas. A year after that, a direct-to-video threequel arrived, with A Clockwork Orange’s lead actor Malcolm McDowell in its starring role. The less said about Cyborgs 2 and 3 the better, as both leaned into the franchise title more than their forerunner’s innovative mix of cyberpunk and martial arts.

Of course, actors like Koteas, Jolie and McDowell were never going to be able to perform the kind of martial arts theatrics that Jean-Claude Van Damme mastered through decades of training. On the other hand, by basing themselves on settings in the distant future and premises about clashes between humans and cyborgs, these sequels were setting themselves up for comparisons with all-time greats of the cyberpunk subgenre, such as Blade Runner and The Terminator. Against these titans of cinema, Cyborg 2 and Cyborg 3 don’t stand the slightest chance.

Ultimately, the basis for Cyborg’s stylized aesthetic and genre-blending appeal is Jean-Claude Van Damme’s magnetic charisma as an actor and rare brilliance as an onscreen martial artist. Without him in the picture, the franchise lost its biggest asset, and sequel projects were bound to fail. Guitar aficionados will also lament the lack of six-string puns in the Cyborg sequels, particularly after Gibson’s showdown with Fender in the first movie.

The 1989 original is unquestionably the only Cyborg worth watching. It’s also an inimitable martial-arts action thriller that’s aged especially well in light of the recent trend of reviving 1980s sci-fi dystopias, which has spawned the likes of Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 and Dune franchise. Cyborg might not be on the same level as these movies, or even Mad Max, as a work of art, but as a work of genre filmmaking it’s up there with the very best that cyberpunk has to offer, while showcasing Jean-Claude Van Damme’s talents in a way you won’t find anywhere else.