Nemesis (1992) User Reviews

Not always coherent, but very energetic.

[gridoon · 6/10 · 8 August 2001]

"Nemesis" is a mixture of incoherent plotting (with rehashed bits from "Robocop" and "Terminator"), brainless action sequences, distracting accents and sarcastic wisecracks spouted by leading man Olivier Gruner, who comes off as a cut-rate version of Van Damme. By all means, it should be a pretty bad film, and maybe it is, but it's nevertheless always watchable and never outright boring. The pacing is continuously fast and the energy level high. (**)

Footnote: If you watch the film, look out for Merle Kennedy who plays Max, the hero's sidekick in the last 20 minutes or so. I loved the athleticism she brings into her small role. What an incredible body! Why hasn't anyone else mentioned her presence??

Surprisingly okay

[jellopuke · 5/10 · 15 July 2020]

So despite the awful acting, weirdly convoluted plot, oddball accents, and overabundance of running gunfights, this movie is charming and watchable. It takes a bit of lots of other movies, but makes something knock off Cyberpunk and fun. Not a good movie by any means, but not the worst POS on the planet either.

Generic but entertaining cyborg antics

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 15 November 2011]

Albert Pyun really likes making movies about cyborgs. His entire career as director owes everything to THE TERMINATOR and ROBOCOP, as he seems obsessed by throwing in as many special effects of half-human half-robot creations as possible into his movies. This post-apocalypse action outing is no different, as it sees Olivier Gruner (the poor man's Van Damme) battling an endless succession of cyborgs who seem to have it in for him. The plot of this film is somewhat ridiculous, and the running time seems to entirely consist of robotic people being shot at or blown up.

Still, something stopped me turning it off, and towards the end I realised something odd: I was actually enjoying this movie. It may be the fast-pacing or the cheesy earnestness of the special effects, but I think this may be Pyun's best movie yet; at least it's one you can sit through without succumbing to boredom. The low rent effects are cheap and dated looking, but I got a real kick out of seeing them and especially the effort (if not originality) having gone into their creation. Take, for instance, the preposterous, ambitious climax, in which our hero battles a robotic skeleton hanging off the back of a plane. It's an obvious attempt to recreate and outdo the climax of The Terminator that fails on every level, but it's still hugely entertaining.

Although Gruner is never more than a solid block of wood as this film's hero, Pyun has assembled quite the supporting cast of B-movie players. There's Tim Thomerson, voraciously chewing the scenery as a corporate bigwig, and an oddly underused Brion James struggling with an appalling German accent. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is there as another sneering example of brutality and even RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD's Thom Mathews makes a brief showing as a robotic assassin. Yes, the film may be trite, ill-conceived, ludicrous and a rip-off, but it actually has style – and I found it more entertaining than Richard Stanley's much-talked-about HARDWARE.

Slick, Sexy and Fun Sci-F/Action

[Nick_Dets · 1 October 2005]

Celebrate Oliver Gruner's heyday by watching the B-movie masterpiece "Nemesis". It's really pretty good. Gruner may be the poor man's Peter Weller, but he plays his 85% android character with an effective stone face and only shreds of humanity. Tight direction and good special effects also keep it fast moving and fun.

Gruner plays Alex, an undercover cop/cyborg hunter. He becomes involved in a dangerous (and at times confusing) plot that sends him fleeing through an industrial wasteland in search for answers. I was tickled pink by a story that doesn't count on cheesy, cop-out twists to maintain its excitement, but simultaneously delivers the goods of a sci-fi and action movie. It lovingly references the movies it takes from, also- which include "Terminator", "Robocop", and "Blade Runner" which keep it on the respectable side of generic. Director Albert Pyun creates a slick neo-noir atmosphere which extenuates the story.

And the action scenes. Oh, the action scenes. Hit and miss Pyun is in top form- using high-tech, but refreshingly not over the top, weaponry and beautiful urban sets. The shoot-outs are imaginative and never redundant or trite. Don't miss the apartment shoot-'em-up where Gruner shoots at the floor spiraling as to create a hole for him to drop down, which he continues to do for two more floors. As if this wasn't cool enough, Pyun uses a Raimi-esquire shot that stays on Gruner's head as he drops through the building. Yes, 10 years later "Underworld" implemented this idea in a more popular film, but I hardly think it did so in better form. There are great stunts, focused direction and good acting to keep it unrelentingly fun.

"Nemesis" does need work, don't get me wrong. As Pyun demonstrated in his 1997 disaster "Mean Guns", he has a hard time tapping into his characters and material which makes things seem distant, confusing and at times impenetrable. He has a difficulty capturing transitions adequately, which obscures some of the action scenes.

Most in the audience will be pleased by the film's unlimited sex appeal. The movie creates a fascinatingly erotic connection between the near future and wangled, unrestrained sexuality. Deboarah Shelton is endlessly sexy and gives the movie a raw energy that almost compensates for its distant connection to the material.

I loved "Nemesis". It has a wonderfully distributed blend of science fiction and action. While there may be a brick wall between the audience and any hope of an emotional connection, it is sexy and fun enough to remain a great time.

Generic action junk masquerading as cyberpunk

[dave13-1 · 5/10 · 19 July 2008]

Don't be fooled by the box art that promises a gritty urban cyberpunk experience. Most of the film's running time takes place in Hawaii - standing in for a low tech, low life Javanese town called Shang Loo - so it looks a little too bright and airy to be cyberpunk to anyone familiar with William Gibson's 'Sprawl'. There are science fiction elements essential to the plot but science fiction fans looking for a tech thriller will be disappointed. This is a generic late 80's / early 90's actioner of a type which has thankfully gone out of style. Lots of explosions, karate fights and expended shell casings strung around a thin, mostly incoherent plot about intrigue in the cyborg population that takes the entire first half of the film to get going. The only compensation seems to be an abundance of stunning women in the cast. The producers must have been owed a favor by a modeling agency or something. Features a rare nude appearance by 1970 Miss USA Deborah Shelton, still looking very hot in her mid-40s, as Julian, a cyborg who has changed sides.

Surprisingly good...

[ipkevin · 7/10 · 17 September 2003]

Director Albert Pyun is responsible for some of the most inept movies in the history of cinema. Never mind the action scenes - Even simple dialogue scenes can be mangled and made unbearable with his magic touch. Therefore, it comes as a surprise that "Nemesis" is so eminently watchable. Nice visuals, interesting ideas, evocative cyberpunk mood, good pacing, and a rather shocking grasp of effective action camerawork and editing. I suspect that another director did most of the work on this one, but I've never been able to confirm. All I know is that there are action scenes in here that are genuinely good, to the point where you might think you were seeing the work of a young but talented action stylist. There's even a "shoot through the floor gag" that was ripped off wholesale recently for the Kate Beckinsale vampire/werewolf film, "Underworld".

Of course, keep in my mind that this is a B-film. It's lower budget and the acting isn't that great. But among B-films, it's quite good. As I said, the action is way above average in energy and style. As well, the locations are varied, and it was one of the earliest films to achieve a William-Gibson-esque cyberpunk feel. If that sounds interesting to you, then give Nemesis a rent. BEWARE: Do NOT rent any of the sequels. Pyun regained his usual golden touch for the sequels, producing what may be the most hate-inducing cinema known to man.

Rain falls on post apocalypse...

[fmarkland32 · 4/10 · 14 June 2006]

Olivier Gruner stars as Alex Rain, a cyborg who has lost all his faith in humanity after barely walking away with his life after a gun fight with terrorists, However his former employers want him back and they want him to get rid of a renegade agent and to insure that he does this deed, they implant a bomb in his heart, not impressed by his former employer's antics Rain goes AWOL and joins the rebels. There are many similarities between this and Pyun's other movie Cyborg. Although where as I remember everyone in Cyborg laughing at the antics on screen, I remember everyone walking out of this one saying how good it was. I however was no fan. I thought the narrative was a bit hard to follow and while the action sequences were well staged, I often found myself distracted by the circumstances surrounding them. (Same thing with Cyborg.) However Nemesis is better than Cyborg, there is more depth in the script however there isn't enough exploring of the depth that could have made this thing great. Indeed there are some very good moments to be found here but had Pyun explored these (Mainly the relationship between Gruner and the renegade agent Jared(Played well by Marjorie Monaghan) as well as Gruner's dilemma to being a cyborg) Nemesis might have really been something. Nemesis has it's fans and I can see why, I just was often bored with the corporate clichés and confused narrative.

Ed note:However it's still way better than any of the sequels, so if you must watch one from this prolific series, see only this one.

* * out of 4-(Fair)

Mildly entertaining nonsense.

[Hey_Sweden · 6/10 · 22 February 2013]

Olivier Gruner stars as Alex, a cop in the year 2027 who has had many body parts replaced with robotics after assorted scrapes. After retiring from the force, he's assigned by his old boss, Farnsworth (Tim Thomerson) to apprehend a former partner, Jared (Marjorie Monaghan) who's smuggling data to a terrorist group. However, he will learn that things aren't as they seem; he'll come to not only question his identity but wonder where his loyalties lie.

Compared to the other B movies of director Albert Pyun, this does deliver the goods when it comes to the action aspect. It gets down to business in record time, and soon enough there's plenty of gunfire and plenty of explosions. The special effects are for the most part pretty good. Only towards the end do they get rather laughable. Both the production design and the location shooting are excellent. Pyun and company really do create the sense of a world that's gone to hell.

There's a strong accent on sex appeal, with many hot women in the cast (Deborah Shelton is particularly ravishing as Julian) and female *and* male nudity. This has also got one hell of a fun B movie cast, with a couple of familiar faces, some of them Pyun regulars. Some of the acting (and dialogue) are highly stylized, so enjoyment of both is likely to be a matter of taste. Gruner is likeable in the lead, while Merle Kennedy, playing a character named Max Impact, does her best Lori Petty imitation. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa plays "terrorist" leader Angie- Liv, Yuji Okumoto is a hotel proprietor, Nicholas Guest and a hilariously accented Brion James are Thomersons' colleagues, and Vincent Klyn and Thom Mathews play other baddies. Look for a young Thomas Jane (he's the provider of the male nudity) in a small part and Jackie Earle Haley in a cameo near the end as a technician.

The main problem is the screenplay, by Rebecca Charles, which is rather muddled and Pyun has to work overtime to keep the audience interested in the characters and scenario. Thankfully, the movie does get better as it goes along and it culminates in one hell of a very funny and lively finish.

The undemanding fan of low budget genre efforts such as this should find "Nemesis" agreeable if not remarkable or memorable.

Six out of 10.

Nemesis: Truly dire

[Platypuschow · 2/10 · 1 November 2018]

Remember the Jean Claude Van Damme movie Cyborg? Well it turned into a franchise that was merged with a series of films called Nemesis.

This technically is the second movie in the series and I can confidently say that I don't understand how the movies are connected at all.

Nemesis unlike Cyborg is not set in a post apocalyptic world, it's just set in a future filled with cyborgs and non-sensical plot lines.

To its credit it does have quite the cast, we have industry veteran Tim Thomerson, Thom "Friday 13th" Mathews, Cary-Hiroyuki "Mortal Kombat" Tagawa, the late great Brion James and a small role for current star Thomas Jane.

Notice I didn't mention lead star Olivier Gruner? That's because he is truly awful.

Surrounded by people considerably more talented than him didn't do him or his character any favours. To make matters worse the plot is a mess and the action though thick and fast is seven shades of crap.

This is a decent length franchise and I do hope they get better than this.

The Good:

Decent cast

The Bad:

Awful accents

Weirdly constructed

Olivier Gruner is just lifeless

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Second film, I can already tell I'm not going to enjoy this franchise

Giving a Japanese character a (What I can only assume is...) Hawaiian accent is baffling

Surprisingly fun low budget "Blade Runner" knockoff

[a_chinn · 7/10 · 11 July 2021]

Low-rent "Blade Runner" cyberpunk wannabe is actually better than you'd expect. Olivier Gruner plays a cyborg cop who has to hunt down a former partner before he can give top secret intel to a terrorist group. One of the members of that terrorist group is "Blade Runner" replicant Brion James and another is Tim Thomerson, who himself starred in the very fun "Blade Runner" influenced "Trancers." Director Albert Pyun (who worked with Thomerson again on "Dollman") is a rather talented low budget journeyman director, having made some memorable if not classic genre films including "Vicious Lips," "Sword and the Sorcerer," "Cyborg," and the underrated post-apocalyptic detective film satire "Radioactive Dreams." On the flip side, he's also responsible for the hilariously awful 1990 "Captain America" adaptation. Compared to other prolific schlocky low budget directors, such as Jim Wynorski or Fred Olen Ray, Pyun does have a modicum of flair that makes his direct-to-video flicks a tad more watchable than most. Although his productions are typically hampered by low budgets, actors of limited ability, and sub-par scripts, he reliably manages to make his film visually interesting and compulsively watchable. I wouldn't go as far to say any of his films are great, though "Nemesis" and "Dollman" are close, but they're consistently fun in a cheesy sort of way. With "Nemisis" he's created a fun grungy Hong Kong style version of ""Blade Runner" or "The Terminator," and has a better script and actors than he usually gets, which also includes Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa ("Rising Sun" "Nash Bridges" "Mortal Kombat") and look fast for a young Thomas Jane ("The Punisher" "Boogie Nights") in a small role as Billy. Overall, "Nemesis" is worth watching if you want a fun cheesy low-budget sci-fi outing. FUN FACT! "Nemesis" features a character shooting the floor out from under them in a circle in order to escape his enemies 11 years before it was copied by mainstream vampire/werewolf action flick "Underworld."

I can not feel anything anymore.

[GizmoS-2 · 1/10 · 29 July 2000]

Why is Tim Thomerson's presence in the film the "1980's-1990's b-movie" equivelant to the good house keeping seal?

The beginning of this film stinks. It gets worse. It never recovers.

The laserdisk included the "Making Of" which didn't answer the top question: WHY DID THEY BOTHER?!?!?

Ultimately the behind-the-scenes film mentions that this film has it all. When they mentioned Drama they showed a scene from the film with the lead quoting "I can not feel anything anymore."

This is brain-numbing stupidity at it's purest. It's so bad, it's bad.

It overachieves to the end.

[David_Powell3006-1 · 8/10 · 14 August 2005]

Oh, man. This one definitely gets me into the way back machine. It was about ten years ago and I was in college. Being a SF fan, I was told by a bud and SF mega-geek (Hey, Reuben) about this movie. So we either popped it into the VCR or saw it on cable. I think it was the VCR - and boom. Nemesis is set in a near future where humanity and machine have begun to merge. Some add on machine parts to make them stronger, faster, or capable of carrying data. And some machines have taken on human appearance, and become human-like androids - cyborgs - further blurring the line between human and machine. Olivier Gruner is Rain, an enhanced cop, watching out for all kinds of new generation criminals, and using his enhancements to try to stay ahead - or at least on par - with the shifting enemies. But then of course he stumbles on something even more sinister than the usual, and it's look out. There are mega over the top gunfights, done in more wild detail because of the low budget, and very little computer generated effects. (Except one scene that others have noted.) Most of it is squibs, sparks and good old fashioned stunt work. Once this one kicks in it ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT let up. Ever. This is one smaller-budget production where the acting, directing, script and frenetic pace combine to make a movie more entertaining and thought provoking that many mega budget SF pics. On top of the action, the script and atmosphere so perfectly evoke a dark, flawed future that other filmmakers should take note. The guy who said it evoked William Gibson's type of dark cyberpunk future was right on the money. It was darn close and had great twists and setting. One reason I took to it was that at the time I was something of a gamer - mostly the Shadowrun series of dark, cyberpunk future. This might have biased me a bit, but I believe that it increased my appreciation of the movie instead. People who dig the newer cyberpunk stuff should check this one out. It does more convincing stuff with less budget and without any obviously fakey CGI. (There is one stop motion shot some have complained about, but at least no one flies around like superman or gets digitally reproduced 1000 times) From the over the top shootouts to good acting by SF legend Tim Thomerson, the ultra cool Merle Kennedy, Deborah Shelton, Gruner himself (with an ultra cool smooth delivery) and a cast that absolutely fits perfectly into their roles and their interactions with each other. This is a movie which achieves a sum greater than the parts, and overachieves from start to finish. People have argued about the later part, but believe me the ending is so cool character wise, that makes up for any other worries. Just a non stop awesome movie that creates atmosphere, features white knuckle action sequences, and creates characters that are believable, bad ass and also people that you end up caring about. If you are a SF buff or even a good movie buff, check it out and you'll be surprised by how well this one hits on all cylinders. Oh, and if you are a cyberpunk fan and dig that stuff, prepare for an awesome depiction of an atmosphere that many other films and other works have tried and failed to capture. Two thumbs way up for this movie, which combines action and character with great settings, overachieves from the get go, and endures as one hell of a fun movie!

Nemesis

[phubbs · 6/10 · 18 January 2015]

So apart from 'Angel Town' this was Oliver Gruner's other best known vehicle, probably one of director Pyun's best known films also. The plot is again about androids in human form and borrows heavily from many many other sci-fi films most probably the Terminator franchise.

Despite the fact this is a low budget sci-fi action flick the plot is so darn twisty. Basically its all about a cop who is part machine (body enhancements), trying to track down and stop rebel freedom fighters. These rebels are fighting against the government that are allowing a new type of android to take over which is duplicating or replacing people, or something like that.

Of course Gruner's half android character realises what is happening and changes sides to battle against the evil government assassins. These assassins are led by the wonderful low budget sci-fi master Tim Thomerson and bad guy regular Brion James, both of which give brilliantly hammy performances.

To be honest the plot is messy and confusing, so many characters and names flying about its easy to get lost at times. That aside the action is actually pretty good throughout the film with some really impressive set pieces and stunt work. Its not original by any means but there are some great camera angles, cool weaponry, plenty of squib action all coupled with a low budget visual appearance which gives that gritty and realistic look.

I must also give kudos to the neat android effects, the odd moment when someone gets blasted and we see their robotic interior. You'd think it would look terrible but its actually quite good, not stunning but very acceptable if completely unoriginal. The finale fight sequence against a mechanical endoskeleton kinda reminds you of something.

Impressive cast of character actors too I might add, Pyun always manages to get good B-list stars. I gotta admit I do like the visuals in this film, that kind of slightly colourless/washed out, cyber punk, wasteland set dystopian future. The action is way over the top but fun whilst Gruner looks good and does fit into this world perfectly.

6/10

A "B" movie that might be an "A-"

[campbellrc1 · 4/10 · 2 April 2004]

Great opening sequence, full of action, in unusual settings.

Owes a lot to Blade Runner but is all in sunshine in the open air (LA, Rio, Hawaii.)

Some pretty bad acting but a strong central idea, and some of the actors, notably Deborah Shelton and Merle Kennedy (and a guy who plays a Dutch/German baddy whose name I can't find -- help!) overcome the limitations of the script.

Deborah, by the way, has a full frontal nudity scene and she's really toned -- not bad for someone who was born in the same year as me! Definitely a MILF!

I seem to remember her in "Dallas" but this doesn't appear in her filmography. Is this early onset Alzheimers, or has she deleted this from her history?

The director, Albert Pyun, has some interesting ideas, notably shooting down narrowing perspectives. He's Hawaiian himself, and uses some spectacular locations, but it seems to me that with films in this genre you should start with the Big Outdoors and end up in urban landscapes, otherwise it looks cheap.

I couldn't really recommend this film, but if it ends up in your DVD player, don't eject it!

Lots and lots of action

[evilned-1 · 10 February 2002]

I had never heard of this movie when I first saw it in the store, but the cover looked cool, and the story sounded neat (well, actually I was more interested in the word "Cyborg" on the cover) so I rented it. I really liked it! Lots of action and CYBORGS!! The plot is a bit confusing, and you never really get a hang of it since they never fully explain it in the movie, but after several viewings I think the plot goes something like this:

LAPD Cop Alex Rain is half-human, half-cyborg (don't expect a mean killing machine àlà RoboCop, though) and he has to stop the Cyborgs before they complete their mission to kill all humans one by one and replace them with Cyborg duplicates. Well, Alex Rain goes to some "low tech, s**t hole called Shang Loo" (quote from the movie) and does a bit of killing and shooting. Well actually he does loads of killing and shooting.

Lots of action, and that's always good. The acting is poor, but Oliver Gruner does a good job as our man, Alex Rain! Poor effects, and a better soundtrack wouldn't hurt. But overall its a pretty good movie! 7 out of 10.

* OUT OF FIVE

[bronsonskull72 · 2/10 · 7 July 2003]

Olivier Gruner stars as Alex Rain a cyborg who battles corparate thugs out to control the world, who are also cyborgs, in this over complicated and overall tedious clash of good and evil. Olivier Gruner seems to have been recruited from Jean-Claude Van Damme school, and overall the movie is just plain dull. The actionscenes are also ruined by Albert Pyun's overkill camera movements.

Not bad at all

[android_9999 · 7/10 · 29 October 2000]

Yes, the movie is cheesy with little plot, but I like it!

Continuous action, naked breasts, monotonous dialogue, guns, kung fu, cheesy special effect...

It has everything expected from a cheesy sci-fi movie, but it manages to pull it off... not bad at all

Worst movies since Vertical limit

[skoknes · 2/10 · 11 May 2001]

This is defenitly a B-Movie with a BIG B. Poor acting and strange special effects (pump shotgun who has the behaviour of a Tiger tanks???). Olivier Gruner who plays the leading role, reminds me of a bad Jean Claude Van Damme look a like.When I thought that nothing about this film could get even worse, I saw the scene in the end where we get to see a Terminator look alike cyborg, and that scene made my blood freeze. The makers of Terminator would have laughed to death if they saw that scene, and Terminator was made in 1984. Nemesis is from 1993!!!!!!!!! Although it was not my kind of movie I respect other peoples opinion, but I could'nt help noticing that 20% of the people who has voted for this movie gave it a 10???????? I strongly suggest to avoid this movie if you like good movies :-)

More or less human?

[unbrokenmetal · 7/10 · 11 January 2009]

Alex (Olivier Gruner) is a cyborg working for the police against terrorists - he thinks. When he is told it actually is a fight of robots against human beings, he starts looking for proof. „Nemesis" apparently was successful enough to "inspire" three sequels, all directed by Albert Pyun, too, but starring Sue Price instead of Gruner. That doesn't mean it had a new recipe, though. „Nemesis" takes familiar elements from hits like „Terminator", „Robocop", „Escape From New York" (the time bomb!) etc. (all movies which spawned sequels themselves already) and thus creates an hour and a half of breathless action - in the first ten minutes, they spent as much ammo and fireworks as other movies during the whole running time. Simple, but it works. To be fair, there are tries to add a bit of depth when Alex wonders if he still can feel anything, whether he is able to decide what's wrong and what's right... and one wonderful joke scene when grandma takes a gun to shoot a cyborg and complains an old woman can't safely walk across the street anymore. But that's the occasional slowdowns you require for an action movie before you start the next gunfight. Action is what it is all about, I mean: what do you expect when the leading lady is named Max Impact (Merle Kennedy)? The special effects are much better than in the sequels. I watched the 4 Nemesis movies (which I watched first in the 1990s) again now in chronological order for my reviews and voted 7/7/5/5.

It stank

[ventrue42 · 1/10 · 3 October 2006]

Action? there was precious little action in this piece of crap. Frankly the best damn action in the movie was granny pulling the hand gun out of her shopping bag and blowing away 2 or more of the 'droids'.

It's yet another example of why governments should be careful about writing tax laws. Because it was done simply to make an investment in for tax purposes.

It has no story You don't give a damn about the characters, It was created to lose money in a controlled fashion pure and simple. With this 'loss' to offset things on the investors income taxes it makes it possible for them to keep more money then if they never 'threw it away' in the first place.

Sorry for the poorly writing comment but frankly don't waste your time on this at all.

Nemesis

[SashaDarko · 7/10 · 22 December 2017]

Not-intellectual-in-a-slightest action movie, which also gives no cyberpunk vibes, it's rather a classic sci-fi thing about machines vs. humankind, and this one almost fully copies Terminator plot (good cyborgs help human rebels to stop other cyborgs from taking over the planet, they dropped the time travel though) and most likely was made after the success of Terminator 2 (they even brought the same visual effects specialist who made the cyborg in Nemesis to look and move exactly like in Cameron's movie). Although Terminator itself is nothing original, so I wouldn't say Nemesis would be a rip-off of it, but I think the success of the T2 movie and hype around cyborgs at the time played the role.

First thing to notice in the movie is how everyone can't shoot properly at all, both "programmed to kill" cyborgs and "experienced" humans. They always miss the targets, even if they stand just about a meter away, it looks extremely ridiculous. But the movie gets even more ridiculous pretty quick when Shang Loo comes into the frame, becoming a unintentional comedy. Very serious poker-face men with black suits and black glasses chasing two humans and missing all the time even with some sort of a shotgun-grenade laucnher weapon (no sharpnel, no blast waves). One time this weapon shoots like it has nuclear bomb bullets, other time they're like the weakest grenades, whatever fits the action on the screen and keeps the heroes going. The way Alex returns the card from cyborg makes him look like a Mowgli, not to mention the way he shoots their pursuer from grenade launcher making a flip, it's just over the top. Truth to be said, they seem to embraced the ridiculousness they put on the screen, there's a funny scene when a granny kills a cyborg with a gun she had in her purse.

The movie tries very hard to look COOL, watching this on VHS being a teenager back in a day probably was a blast. The actors do their job just fine for a movie like that, it's certainly not a disaster on the performance front. The editing is good, visual effects are great. The locations chosen for the movie are beautiful and they used very well, it's one of the strong feats of the movie. You'd recognize Brion James, who probably played in all b-movies out there, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who later became Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat, and Thomas Janes, who later became a great The Punisher. It was good to see them all here together.

7.5/10 sashadarko.com

ugh

[quabid · 1/10 · 26 July 2000]

Nice locations. Horrific acting, sketchy sound, pretty awesome for a B scifi flick.

Some of the effects looked very cheesy.

The plot was kinda neat though.

Pyun's Stylistic Semi-Classic of the Crap Genre

[nutsy · 10/10 · 28 March 2004]

I first saw NEMESIS on late night TV when I was about 15. The first time I saw it I thought it was exciting if a bit confusing. It was a lot better than most other movies they showed at that time of night. On subsequent viewings the plot became very clear and it was the action that got less appealing. Strictly speaking, NEMESIS is not a good movie. It is however, a kind of crap genre classic that had an influence on some mainstream film.

Alex (Oliver Grunner) is an LA cop in the future where "it pays to be more than human". He fights terrorists who are all cyborgs. Alex gets hurt a lot, so he also he's also part machine. Rebecca Charles's weak script has most things explained by a narration. This explains Alex's motivations for leaving the police force (after getting himself blown up and put back together again). He goes to Mexico with his dog and has another run-in with the terrorists. He gets hurt and put back together again. This time when he wakes up, he finds himself blackmailed into the service of a government official. He goes to an island in the South Pacific where nobody is what they seem and everyone carries a gun. Alex eventually learns of a coming war between the cyborgs and the humans. The rest is shooting and shifting loyalties.

This film had a number of good ideas going into it. Some of the action sequences are exciting and memorable. At one point Alex is trapped in a hotel room and shoots a hole through the floor, falling and shooting through three stories. The sunglasses and trench-coat look most of the characters have is very MATRIX like. The hero has to deal with a bomb in his heart and the listening devices his bosses have planted in his body. Sadly the conclusion is weak, the would-be love interest is annoying, and the last half hour or so ditches substance entirely. The make-up effects are good. Some of the special effects are weak, but it's to be expected for a low budget flick like this. Grunner is fine as our hero.

Albert Pyun has proved he can make better movies than this (MEAN GUNS, THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER), so he isn't really to blame. A better script would have improved this immensely. A remake might be in order, with more money and better writers. NEMESIS really could have been something, although it isn't exactly nothing. For this crap genre, though, it scores fairly high.

How is this so good?

[BandSAboutMovies · 7/10 · 30 August 2023]

The ancient future test is one to determine if the movie that you are watching fits into that genre, a time when books like Neuromancer were being strip-mined for ideas to make high concepts films that were five minutes into the future in the 1990s but are now hopelessly mired in the past.

Let's give Nemesis this test.

Does it have the title of a Philip K. Dick book but not really have much to do with it?

Nope, but you would not be blamed if you believed that director Albert Pyun and writer Rebecca Charles - who is of course Pyun using a different name* - weren't watching tears in the rain and robotic mutton sleeping.

Is there a lot of rain?

Of course there is.

Does the male hero wear dress clothes and/or a trenchcoat?

More than that, everyone in this movie wears sunglasses. In the day. At night. Sunglasses on top of sunglasses.

Do Keanu Reeves, Ben Affleck, Dolph Lundgren or Udo Keir appear in it?

Amazingly, no.

Does the internet do something it can't do yet, yet look dated AF?

Oh man. You can download your entire soul onto the video game grid, something Jared (Marjorie Monaghan) does before - spoiler warning - sacrificing herself.

Are Stabbing Westward, KMFDM, Ministry or God Lives Underwater on the soundtrack?

The budget couldn't afford any of those bands. It's also a few years too early.

Is it a crappy version of Blade Runner?

Can a movie be Blade Runner, The Terminator, an anime and The Matrix seven years before that movie got made?

Are there numerous Asian-influenced scenes?

The U. S. and Japan have pretty much become one big country.

Do people use future terms that make no sense?

You know it, akachan.

Are there a lot of whirring sound effects?

All the whirring.

Do people stare at the camera as it moves through a neon-lit strip club?

I mean, they have sunglasses on, but I think the answer is yes.

Are there rock stars in it?

Shockingly, no.

Is there a feral child?

You would think so, but somehow, nope. There's a dog that Alex saves in the beginning and loses, but that happens so fast that there is really no emotional impact.

I'll still say that this is an ancient future cyberpunk movie.

After Dangerously Close and Down Twisted, this was to be Albert Pyun's last film in his three-movie contract with Cannon. Golan and Globus wanted Pyun to make a more mainstream action movie and he pitched a remake of Nicolas Ray's Johnny Guitar with John Travolta - who Cannon thought didn't have enough power at the box office - and Alex Rain, a serial killer being chased by the cops movie. Pyun started on the Alex Rain script, which was to star Kelly Lynch as an FBI agent hunting a serial killer amongst the Neo-Nazi community 25 years in the future. Or maybe 400 years and on Mars. Before that could happen, Cannon had him finish Journey to the Center of the Earth and do Cyborg.

In 1991, Pyun made Arcade for Full Moon and went back to Alex Rain. His new idea was to have the lead be a violent street urchin working undercover for a futuristic L. A. P. D. He planned on Megan Ward, who had been in Arcade, to star. He started looking for the right studio to make it with and decided on Imperial and the Shah Brothers. They told him that if he changed Alex from a 13-year-old girl to a 30-year-old male and cast French kickboxer Olivier Gruner, he could do whatever he wanted.

After being bullied as a kid, Gruner started to study Shotokan karate, boxing, kickboxing and full contact kickboxing. After school, he joined the French Navy, volunteering for their Commandos Marine unit and fought pirates. He left the military and won his first kickboxing title - the W. A. K. O. World Championship - before plastering the 1987 Cannes Film Festival with his photo. Obviously, he's been a success - he's been in more than forty films - as well as having a fashion line, being a volunteer firefighter and even continuing to work as a bodyguard for clients like Celine Dion.

He starts the film as just 86% human named Alex Rain. He's an assassin/bounty hunter for the LAPD - not a stretch, right? - who is attacked on a routine case by Rosaria (Jennifer Gatti, Double Exposure) and The Red Army Hammerheads. After months of cybernetic reconstruction - who can even guess his percentage now? - he finds Rosaria in Baja and gets his revenge. That's when her handlers show up to get the pieces, Sam (Marjean Holden, who has been in everything from Dr. Caligari and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot to playing Sheeva in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation) and Alex's ex, Jared (the previously mentioned Marjorie Monaghan).

Alex decides that he's done with the LAPD, but he's brought back in by Commissioner Farnsworth (Tim Thomerson!) for one last job. He has to stop Jared before she sells vital security intel about the Japan/U. S. summit to the Hammerheads. To add another influence to the film, they Snake Pliskin his heart by inserting a bomb that will blow him up in three days unless he finds Jared before she meets with Hammerhead leader Angie-Liv (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who is literally the bad guy's bad guy; speaking of Phillip K. Dick he was in the TV series of the book The Man In the High Castle).

You may not be shocked to learn that the cops are the bad guys and the Hammerheads have humanity's best interests at heart. There are several sinister androids stalking the highest levels of human society, copying the minds of powerful leaders into their perfect synthetic bodies. One of them you've already met, as Farnsworth has been taken over and has already sent another cyborg named Julian (Deborah Shelton, Body Double) to destroy the Hammerheads. She removes the tracking device in his eyeball, injects him with a scrambler that allows her to remove the bomb in his heart and sacrifices herself to save him when the cops bust in. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, she's also naked - as she is for most of the film - and shares some love scenes with Thomas Jane. She volunteered to be nude for these scenes and Jane decided to follow her lead.

Alex saves the life of Max Impact (Merle Kennedy), the sister of the cyborg he killed earlier, Rosaria, and wins her over to his side. Despite all of the Hammerheads getting killed - the movie jumps from city to jungle in some of the action - Alex and Max used Jared's digital spirit to destroy most of the replicating machines and then kill Farnsworth and Germaine (Nicholas Guest), who tells him that they can't stop all of their creations.

There are several endings. The Extended Version has Alex and Max walk into a still-alive Farnsworth cyborg while Sam's voice asks, "Should we take them out now?" Farnsworth answers, "Why not?" Farnsworth is still alive in this cut as they never fight him in the previous scenes. There's also an ending - which is the one I watched on Tubi - where this conversation happens but you never see Thomerson's robotic bad boss.

This movie has so many people in it that I forgot its cast includes Thom Matthews (Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives), Yuji Okumoto (the best bad guy ever, Chozen Toguchi from The Karate Kid Part 2, as well as one of the Howard Cossell-loving brothers, Yee Sook Ree, in Better Off Dead) Brion James (who was in everything; he grew up in his parent's movie theater and went on to be in films like The Horror Show (AKA House 3), Brainsmasher... A Love Story, Striking Distance and perhaps most essential to this movie, Blade Runner), former surfer Vincent Klyn (Cyborg and so many other Pyun movies), one-time Bad News Bear and someday Freddy Jackie Earle Haley and Arnold's buddy Sven-Ole Thorsen, who played La Fours in Mallrats, Thorgrim in Conan the Barbarian, The Demon in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story and henchmen and hired thugs in more movies than I can even think of.

Pyun made a lot of movies. He had a thing called "Rock and Roll Filmmaking" where he'd spend the first few days just getting pick ups he'd never use. This caused producers to get upset. But you know, do we even know that producer's name today? Nope. But we can watch this Pyun film and be amazed at what he did on such a small budget and that this was the time that fate decreed that it would all work out right, that all the influences would come together and that this was his most perfect film.

*Thanks to the always amazing Bulletproof Action for confirming this.

Plot less sci-fi action full of stolen ideas.

[poolandrews · 3/10 · 26 October 2010]

Nemesis is starts during the future year of 2027 in Los Angeles as cyborg cop Alex (Oliver Guner) shoots a robotic terrorist who has vital information on the 'Red Army Hammerheads' terrorist organisation, while trying to escape with the information member of the Red Army Hemmerheads blow him to pieces. Jump forward 'Six Months Later' as Alex has been rebuilt by the LAPD & is more machine than human, Alex has become a data smuggler but his old LAPD boss Farnsworth (Tim Thomerson) forces Alex into one last assignment. An assignment to find & capture his former partner Jared (Marjorie Monaghan) who has sold top secret information to the Red Army Hammerheads who plan to assassinate top Government officials. Alex has no choice but to accept, the LAPD fitted a bomb in his robotic heart & if he steps out of line, bang. However Alex has been used as a pawn in a wider & more sinister plan by the cyborgs who intend to overthrow humanity & rule the Earth themselves...

This Danish & American co-production was directed by Albert Pyun who for me is one of the very worst director's still working today, he maybe isn't quite as bad as either Jess Franco or Jim Wynorski but he's right down there with them & just because Nemesis is considered one of his best film doesn't stop it from being any less crap or make it any more worthwhile. The script is a mess, it tries to mix all the futuristic films of the time that dealt with cyborgs & lawless futures such as Robocop (1987) & The Terminator (1984) both of which are far superior to this awkward mess of a film. The biggest problem with nemesis is the lacklustre story (cyborgs in the future want to take over), the seemingly random way it develops (even though the film states that Alex is a really bad data smuggler the LAPD want him to undertake a vital mission), the questions that never get answered (why do the cyborgs want to replace humans with perfect robotic duplicates that act & look exactly like the human they are replacing, what is their big plan, what is the Red Army Hammerheads big plan & why is Alex so important for it?), the events that are never explained (why does the LAPD allow Alex to go to Rio de Janeiro & become a data smuggler, what's with the pointless puppy to dog scene at the start?) & a really dull plot that gets about five minutes of exposition the whole film between boring scenes of people running around shooting at each other. The script is totally humourless & is really dull, the dreary politics between the cyborgs & humans almost put me to sleep, there's never any real indication that Nemesis is set in the future apart from the cyborgs themselves & who is controlling Alex? Who is controlling Farnsworth? The whole script is just loose, it occasionally throw's in some dialogue that is supposed to sound serious about cyborgs wanting to take over the planet but otherwise Nemesis is a plot less & uneven sci-fi thriller with a few forgettable action scenes tossed into the mix.

The opening gunfight was alright, even though the bad guy's can't hit Alex from about ten feet away in open ground. I mean Alex is running though a building site & these bad guy's are right behind him shooting but none of them ever hit him. He, of course, hits & kills them easily. There are three separate sliding scenes, Alex slides down a rubble pile, he slides down an old fun park slide & then down the side of a hill. There are a few explosions too but almost all the so called action here is just people who can't aim properly shooting at each other. The climax is a real rip-off of The Terminator as a cyborg metallic robot skeleton has a fight with Alex while hanging out the back of a plane. Don't ask. Despite being made almost a decade later & despite the advances in special effects the robot fight at the end of The Terminator looks a thousand times better. The film is shot with very muted colours & the usual bright neon lighting that so many sci-fi films seem to have. There's not much blood or gore although there is a bit of nudity if that's what your after.

Although filmed between November & January 1992 Nemesis wasn't released until the beginning of 1993 & you can see why, shot in Los Angeles, Arizona & Hawaii. The acting is alright but what on Earth is Brion James doing? Why the bad German accent? Future Hollywood star Thomas Jane has a small role & why kill of the babe in boots at the start? They even put her on the front of the DVD box yet she is killed off within a few minutes, she was the prettiest one & has the biggest gun. Nice going Pyun you klutz.

Nemesis is a terrible sci-fi action thriller with dull action scenes, an almost random plot stolen from other much better sci-fi action thrillers, a future that looks about twenty years out of date already & some questionable special effects. Not good, not good at all so why on Earth did Nemesis spawn no less than three sequels? Nemesis 2: Nebula (1995), Nemesis III: Prey Harder (1996) & Nemesis 4: Death Angel (1996) all again directed by Pyun.