MOVIE REVIEW : CYBORG MARTYR ON THE LOOSE IN ‘PROGRAMMED’

Sandahl Bergman has such a lithe, Amazonian elegance it’s a shame that “Programmed to Kill” (citywide) wastes it. As it is, she has only one mildly amusing moment in this otherwise numskull movie. Dressed punk style, she attracts this pool-playing dude who tries to come on while she’s using a bar pay phone. At last fed up, she coolly takes his cue and snaps it in several places as if it were a toothpick.

Bergman, a Broadway dancer who became Arnold Schwarzenegger’s leading lady in “Conan the Barbarian,” plays a member of a PLO splinter group who’s shot and captured by the CIA. Declared brain dead, she’s turned by the agency into a cyborg, a killing machine that can be aimed at her comrades. Predictably, she’s not quite the perfect weapon the CIA had planned.

Technically, “Programmed to Kill,” which was originally called “Retaliator,” is quite competent, but it’s strictly a standard-issue item as surly CIA maverick Robert Ginty, who caught and wounded Bergman in the first place, has to go after her again now that she’s a superwoman who has unaccountably regained her memory and turned on the CIA.

The irony of this twist of fate, which calls for a bleakly satirical tone, seems entirely lost on director Allan Holzman and writer Robert Short, who play everything absolutely straight. “Programmed to Kill” (rated R for much violence) apparently wants to serve as a warning about the perils of human engineering but inadvertently turns Bergman’s customized terrorist into an avenging martyr. Moammar Kadafi ought to love it.