Nemesis.

You know, the fact that a nobody blogger like me can get hits at all, makes me immensely happy. It makes me even more happy when people check out my schlock reviews, a majority of my readers just read my reviews to compare my opinion to theirs on something they have seen, which is fine and I am grateful, but I write reviews of these films you have never heard of to showcase something I think you'd enjoy and you could perhaps go through your life without ever hearing of, thus missing out. This is my one service as a massive film geek that I can provide. So onwards with the 1992 B-Movie 'Nemesis' (and for the record no, I won't be reviewing the other three in the franchise as they are difficult to find and by all accounts 3 and 4 aren't fun bad, they are just genuinely awful, I might try and snatch up number 2 if I find it cheap enough somewhere though.) Enjoy!

Nemesis is directed by a guy named Albert Pyun, I have admittedly never heard of this guy, but he seems pretty infamous in the bad movie circles...and seems to put cyborgs in every one of his films, whether it makes sense or not. Critics called Nemesis convoluted, badly acted and claimed that the script was weak but it went and became a cult classic anyway. It would seem normal people still enjoyed it, some not even ironically. Also according to my perfectly reliable source, Japan got an extended version of the film with a much darker ending...I don't have that copy, there have also been talks since 2010 to rerelease the film with modern effects...I also don't have that copy, but let's dig in anyway!

Set in 2027 in LA...Nemesis is basically an alien invasion story done with cyborgs instead of aliens and done in the style of a noir. Wider than that, it is a film about technology, this was released in 1992 so the internet had only been available to civilians for about a year at this point. And we still believed the internet was a force for good, this amazing thing where we could have the worlds knowledge at our fingertips...who knew it'd end up being a place for photos of tits, photos of cats and videos of random phrases being repeated for hours on end. Wider than that though the film is a surprisingly deep one, tackling things like humanity, identity, what those terms mean and what it is like to lose it. This has to be the most pretentious B-Movie I have ever seen!

Our protagonist is a cop named Alex Raine who is proud to still be 86.5% human, however during a case he is practically killed in a shootout and to save his life, they basically have to replace all of his human parts with cyborg parts. As it turns out the evil cyborgs are trying to take his humanity away to get him to join them. Alex becomes a drug addict, a criminal and a human explosive before the film ends. Eventually Alex gets manipulated by the evil cyborgs to hunt down and take out their last threat, Alex's ex-lover, Jared who is now bodiless and everything that is her is now just saved on a memory card. Once Alex is clued up on what is going on he has to begin bringing the whole thing down, ready for the sequels. Wow. The film is pretty intelligent at times and has some surprisingly accurate predictions for the future of the world, but it's just so badly written.

The film, although not complicated, can be difficult to follow, there are so many characters, so many concepts and many are rarely ever properly introduced or explained meaning that by the first hour, there is so much to remember and keep check of, you spend more time trying to remember that than paying attention to what is happening. I must admit I did have to keep checking Wiki to double check I was remember what name went with what character and what that characters purpose in the story is. Luckily there is way more action than narrative, you could probably do fine without bothering to try and understand the story at all.

Pyun apparently wants to rerelease the film with 'computer effects', which basically suggests he wants to replace all the effects with CGI...so I'm honestly really glad I have the original. I prefer practical effects anyway, but the ones in Nemesis are really, really good - well until the last ten minutes or so, but I don't think CGI would help it, since it has exactly the same problems CGI would bring. It is all helped by some surprisingly good direction and cinematography, to create some great atmosphere filled with thrilling, stylish, action and some really gorgeous women. The whole movie is really good looking though, just an ultra slick and cool neo/technoir. There have been complaints that this film promotes style over substance...and that is practically a style in itself. You can debate endlessly whether it's right to put emphasis on the visuals or whatever, but at the end of the day when the film is genuinely stylish, I find it hard to care that they place emphasis on that. If that is where Pyun's strength lies, I'd like to see him put it there, better that than try to stretch himself across both and then end up failing on each. The script is a little crappy, but it's hard to care when the movie is this cool. That being said, it is difficult to ignore the similarities between this and the Hard Boiled comic book mini-series that came out two years earlier, I can't seem to find any one else pointing this out though...

If I was going to have any complaints about the look/style of the film, it would be my pet peeve against films featuring cyborgs, where them looking like any other human is a plotpoint. This is clearly a way to explain away things they couldn't be bothered to edit out. I just don't think it looks very good when you have sweaty, unshaven cyborgs, which apparently get fitted with synthetic skin that come with tattoos. I guess this is a personal issue more than anything else, but I still think it looks kinda rubbish. Then again, if saying they are cyborgs is an excuse to explain away some of the crazy action in this film, then I'm not complaining.

The press around the movie goes on about the lead actor, Olivier Gruner, I have never heard of this guy, so I don't really care although I must say he is a gloriously bad actor (which rings true for practically the whole cast), like many action stars are - he can move great, but he can't act out of a paper bag. And sadly the dialogue is pretty awful, so he doesn't get a chance to hide his bad acting behind silly, but quotable oneliners. What I do care about though, is that the main villain is played by the truly awesome Tim Thomerson, amazing casting! He is also probably the best actor in the whole film and with such a truly awful cast, the fact he can act at all makes him stick out like a sore thumb.

So do I recommend it? Nemesis is a great, but deeply flawed movie, which is a shame - if you can look passed some pretty terrible acting, a surprisingly convoluted story and hilariously bad stop motion effects, what you get here is an imaginative, insanely fun science fiction noir that I highly recommend. Hell this movie is worth it for Tim Thomerson, what a great actor.

Think About It!

-Locke