If there is any formula that has been beaten to death in action flicks, it is the “Die Hard in a…” film. Die Hard on a ship and its sequel, Die Hard on a train; Die Hard on a plane; Die Hard at the White House; Die Hard at a boarding school; Die Hard on a freakin’ bus. It’s such a reliable formula that sometimes an action flick can fall into all the Die Hard tropes as if by accident — like the filmmakers had something else in mind, but the lure of Die Hard was just too powerful to resist.
From 1995 comes Cyberjack, directed by Robert Lee from a script by Eric Poppen.
It’s the near future! A team of computer scientists, led by Dr. Phillip Royce and his daughter, Dr. Alex Royce (Duncan Fraser and Suki Kaiser), have created a new computer virus that acts as an anti-virus, and it lives in biological matter, and it may or may not have some kind of intelligence…it’s not all that clear. The details behind the virus are unimportant. In this movie’s world, the virus is a dangerous commodity that will have worldwide impact should it fall into the wrong hands.
Those wrong hands show up at the computer lab one fine evening in Nassim (Brion James) and his band of terrorists. They seize the building, hold all the scientists hostage, and demand that the Drs. Royce hand over control of the virus to Nassim. The only person who can stop Nassim is the janitor, Nick James, played by Shitty Movie Sundays All-Star Michael Dudikoff.
Nick isn’t just a janitor, though. He’s an ex-cop. Ex, because he had a run-in with Nassim during the film’s introduction, where Nassim killed Nick’s partner. Nick crawled into a bottle after that, and in typical action flick coincidence, when Nassim seizes the computer lab, Nick finds an opportunity for personal redemption.
This film had set itself up as a future noir — something along the lines of Blade Runner. Much of the aesthetic was geared that way, as well. There wasn’t much of a budget to work with, but the effects crew did some work building a cyberpunk cityscape, of sorts. But, any wider scope 
this film had disappeared as soon as Nassim and company invaded the lab. Afterwards, the film is a cat and mouse game played out in a handful of sets on a soundstage.
There are so many Die Hard ripoffs that a film like Cyberjack needs something to stand out, and it doesn’t have that. 1995 was the tail end of Dudikoff’s run as a viable, lower tier action star. He’d hit his 40s, and the glory days of the Golan-Globus partnership at Cannon were long gone. The action DNA was still there, but about all Dudikoff had to offer this movie were wrinkles and a performance that makes Nick seem like he has a learning disability. The guy is supposed to be something of a drunk, but Dudikoff’s acting skills were just not up to the demands of the world weary antihero. The result is a protagonist who lurches from one set piece to the next, at times with a confused look on his face.
That Guy actors like Brion James are always the most reliable performers. The ease and professionalism they bring to even the cheapest productions elevates the material. When they get the chance to eat up some screen time as the bad guy, they usually seize the opportunity. James does so in this flick. He doesn’t swoop in and give a tour de force performance like Alan Rickman, but this is a drab movie that he does make more watchable.
There are themes of dystopia and technology run amok that are inherent to the material that get pushed aside because this is a cheap, direct-to-video b-movie. If one does want to see a movie that explores the ethical morass that modern technology has thrown us into, this is not it, nor was it meant to be. All the highfalutin stuff was a means to an end. That end, as it turns out, is a rote action flick that ran out of ideas before the opening credits finished. Cyberjack enters the Watchability Index at #329, taking over from Gargoyles.