Cyberjack (also known as Virtual Assassin) is a 1995 Canadian sci-fi action movie directed by Robert Lee, starring Michael Dudikoff and Brion James.
20 Minutes into the Future, Nick James (Dudikoff) is an ex-cop who is now working as a janitor at a computer tech firm. When the building is stormed by a group of terrorists who want to steal an experimental super-virus to wreak chaos around the world, Nick is the only one who can stop them.
This film provides examples of:
- Air-Vent Passageway: Nick uses the giant air ducts to navigate around the office building and hide from the terrorists.
- Attack Drone: The police force uses a remote-controlled drone to flush out the terrorists who have taken over a computer science lab. However, they almost immediately mistake the lone hero Nick for one of the bad guys and he spends considerable time trying to avoid the drone.
- Computer Virus: A group of terrorists seize control of a tech company so they can steal the computer virus that they were developing, which caught their attention earlier when the virus briefly 'escaped' and caused a plane crash. Goes into full-on Hollywood Science when the main villain merges himself with the virus to become god, gaining Telepathy in the process.
- "Die Hard" on an X: It's "Die Hard" in an office building in the future.
- Digitized Hacker: The bad guy Nassim wants to steal a super-virus from a computer lab so he can merge with it and Take Over the World. This works at first as he develops telepathic powers, but when Nick shoots him in the head he goes One-Winged Angel and infects the computer systems as a sentient virus. The heroes solve this by basically deleting him.
- Drop Dead Gorgeous: The henchwoman Megham, who spends the film in a Sexy Backless Outfit with sculpted nipples, is shot dead and gets a couple lingering views of her open-eyed corpse as blood drips out of her mouth.
- Epigraph: This cheesy Michael Dudikoff sci-fi action movie about a bunch of terrorists storming a building to steal a computer super-virus opens with a quote by, of all people, Stephen Hawking.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: The terrorist villains include an albino boss named Nassim, two generic Western Terrorists, a black Dark Action Girl, a cowboy-hat wearing Eagleland type, and an African guy dressed in traditional clothing.
- Godhood Seeker: The bad guy wants to merge himself with a techno-organic virus so he can take over every system and person on Earth. When he's called out on trying to play god by one of his hostages, he replies that "God would be lucky if I return his phone calls". In the climax he goes into full-on Chewing the Scenery mode after he's shot by the hero and his spirit escapes into the computers.Nassim: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I am the Light and the Way! I am the Kingdom and the Glory! I am Eternal! You shall have no other god before me!"
- Hologram: Nick uses a set of holograms of himself running through a corridor to confuse the hell out of the bad guys, who spend about five minutes running all over the place trying to catch him before they realize the trick he's pulled on them. Then the last "hologram" runs up to The Brute and punches him in the face.
- Kiss Me, I'm Virtual: There's a scene where Nick is watching a stripper hologram in the lab room during his break.
- Loan Shark: Nick is in debt to a local criminal who is waiting for him in Nick's home at one point with several of his goons.
- Plot-Irrelevant Villain: The main plot involves a group of terrorists taking over an office building and our underdog hero trying to foil them, but early on Nick is accosted at his trailer home by a loan shark gangster and his goons. They shoot at Nick as he runs back to the building, but never appear again.
- Police Are Useless: In this Die Hard knockoff set in the future, the police are just as useless. The police drone and its handlers mistake the hero for one of the terrorists and spend much of the movie pursuing him while the bad guys work on completing their plan.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Megham declares "clean-up time" after believing she's wounded Nick with a bullet to the chest, only for him to quickly turn around and kill her before she can finish him off.
- Prison Rape: Mentioned as a throwaway line by Nassim when he's trying to figure out Nick's identity.Nassim: Nick James... Nick... Nick... I used to fuck a guy in prison called Nick. No wait, that was Nick Jones.
- Put Down Your Gun and Step Away: In the opening, the villain Nassim does the usual version of forcing the hero Nick to lower his gun before shooting both his hostage and Nick.
- Sentry Gun: The office building taken over by the terrorists is decked out with a laser turret defense system. Two cops investigating the scene discover this the hard way.
- Shoot the Hostage Taker: Discussed at the end, where the terrorist bad guy Nassim, with all of his minions already dead, takes the female lead hostage and taunts the hero Nick to shoot him. They were in a similar situation years before when Nick was still a cop and Nassim took his partner hostage, only to attempt to kill them both when Nick complied with Nassim's demands and lowered his gun. Of course, this time around he shoots him for real.
- Spare a Messenger: After acquiring the super-virus and gaining superpowers, Nassim releases the hostages before attempting to brainwash the planet. One of his remaining minions points out that they're all witnesses, to which Nassim retorts "Exactly. They'll be witnesses to what transpired here today". Apparently, he wants people to spread the tale about how he became a god.
- Terrorists Without a Cause: The terrorists don't seem to be in it for any cause in particular; they just want the virus so they can seize power for its own sake.
- Would Hit a Girl: Nick fights the henchwoman Megham and leaves her spinning Bound and Gagged to a contraption. She frees herself and has a gunfight with the hero later on, where he is pushed far enough to kill her in self-defense.
- You Have Failed Me: A weird example where one of the bad guy's minions carries this out on another one of his minions without prompting. After The Brute is wounded by the hero, the Dark Action Girl sneers about how much of a failure he is before breaking his neck.
- You're Insane!: In the climax there's this back-and-forth between the villain and the female lead after he explains his plans to become a godlike techno-organic virus.Alexandra: You're insane!
Nassim: Perhaps. I choose to think of it as 'acute awareness'.
