Cold Fusion Video Reviews

• Directed by Richard Pepin
• Written by Jacobsen Hart
• Starring
  • Don “The Dragon” Wilson
  • Richard Norton
  • Stacie Foster
  • John Aprea

All right, I’ll admit it — I like Don “The Dragon” Wilson. He habitually plays an unassuming nice guy, a pleasant-enough everyman who can kick ass with the best of them. The pictures he stars in are usually low budget, Corman-style flicks; most are entertaining, if not ambitious. Well, CyberTracker was definitely unambitious, but a little too inept to be fun.

In the near future, a Senator Dilly rams through a program authorizing Core Trackers, android peace officers manufactured by Cyber Core, empowered to pass and execute sentences (odd how every sentence is death — doesn’t anyone get life in prison?). Wilson is Agent Phillips of the Secret Service, assigned to Senator Dilly; after thwarting a public attempt on the senator’s life by an extremist human rights group, he witnesses the senator rubbing out someone with sensitive information on the Core Tracker program. The senator and his head of security just stand there and watch Wilson get away (this happens often throughout the film), then report him to the police as the murderer. Presto, Phillips has bald Terminator-wannabe’s scouring the city for him. After managing to defeat one, he falls in with the human rights group, and they creep into the Cyber Core complex to discover their deep dark secrets.

Somehow, the Core Trackers seem like a poor investment. They can’t hit the broad side of a barn door, at least when they’re aiming at Phillips. At one point, he hids behind a hot dog stand; the Tracker feels duty-bound to shoot every glass bottle off the top of the counter before trying to shoot through the wood paneling at Phillips. Same thing when he hides behind a car; the Tracker just keeps peppering the car with bullet holes — and then just stands and watches him run to other cover.

And let me tell you, I’ve never seen so many explosions in one movie before. We’ve got multiple cars and trucks, a helicopter, a propane tank, and a Tracker. And here’s a little safety tip for you: anytime car A rams into car B, car A will fly into the air and flip over before landing and exploding. Every time.

Now, you’re all staring at me, saying, “Sounds like it rocks, dude! What’s the problem?” The problem is that long, drawn-out shootouts against an invulnerable enemy who can’t hit a target just ain’t fun. And the other problem is the calibre of acting; normally, Wilson supplies the high kicks and lets others supply the real acting, but in this he was about the best actor in the cast. Be very afraid.

And yet, you know that sooner or later my judgment will slip and I’ll rent CyberTracker 2…