The Return of the Bionic Boy (1979)

The idea of this movie - a young boy with bionic parts battling a Nazi madman filmed by Filipino filmmakers on a very low budget - may sound like it would be a lot of fun, at least on an unintentionally entertaining level. Indeed, there are some moments that are so lame, so tacky, so feeble-minded that they do provoke chuckles from viewers, my favorite being the name of the Nazi villain. But for the most part, the movie is forgettable stuff. Most of what the title figure does to battle the bad guys is indulge in martial arts, and the martial arts are strictly standard stuff; you wouldn't most of the time figure out that the bionic boy really is bionic from his fighting skills. A bigger problem with the movie, however, is that there isn't a heck of a lot of story. The story is really thin, and as a result the movie is really padded out with material that advances the plot little to not at all. Eventually I started to lose interest, even when the movie in the last third decides it's going to deliver an action-packed finale. I haven't seen the Bionic Boy movie that preceded this, but after watching this sequel, I have no desire to do so.