Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

“In the future, it pays to be more than human.” -The Nemesis tag-line.

“In the future, it pays to make better movies than this one.” –Me.

Today, I will be talking about such a particular incident involving a Jean-Claude Van Damme clone, a director named Albert Pyun (If you do not know who he is, consider yourself blessed. Otherwise, you must be shuddering... ) and a film called Nemesis. Before you go seek a third-rate post-apocalypse thriller like Nemesis, remember this famous Latin adage, caveat emptor.

As I scanned through the science-fiction section of a local video store, my glaring eyes were suddenly amazed at what caught my attention. I managed to spot a copy of Albert Pyun’s science-fiction flick, Nemesis sitting lonely on a video shelf. The store clerk nearby glared at me and asked, “So you want to see a bastardized version of The Terminator? ” I nodded...in embarrassment.

I recalled watching the trailer for this film (I was supposed to be studying, but I slacked off). Granted the film itself looked pretty cool with lots of stuff blowing up and people trying to shoot each other as if it was a hunting sport using human prey. However, if you want to know my real initial reaction after watching the trailer, here it is: “Boy, this film is probably going to suck! But I want to see it anyway!” After watching Nemesis, I felt like I wanted to travel back in time and warn a more naïve version of me not to touch this film with a thirty foot pole. Watching Nemesis may not be as painful as going through a fraternity haze, but it is pretty darn close…


The (Tenuous) Plot
Welcome to yet another twisted vision of the future. It is the year 2027; Los Angeles is a very different place. Technology is the name of the game and according to the main character, in the future, “it pays to be more than human.” Meet Alex Rain (Olivier Gruner, who looks like a bad cross between Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chow Yun-Fat), a cop who has his hands tied trying to fight terrorists. The beginning of Nemesis is just crazy. Chaos ensues while Alex is trying to escape from a hail of bullets and a storm of explosions. This should have been one of the most exciting moments in Nemesis ; too bad Albert Pyun was busy blatantly imitating John Woo. Back to the action, while trying to save a puppy’s life, Alex is critically wounded...

Miraculously, Alex survives, but now after intensive surgery, he has had so many body parts and organs artificially replaced that he is becoming more of a machine rather than a man. (That should remind you of a particular robot cop from the 1980s. *Wink, wink.*) Six months after his surgery, Alex is sent to Baja, New America for rehabilitation. There, he is forced to confront his consciousness. Alex is not really sure which side he is fighting for. On one hand, he detests the so-called “terrorists” who are constantly trying to kill him. On the other hand, one of the terrorists—the one who nearly killed Alex—reminds him that ironically, he is not really fighting for humanity because he himself is gradually transforming into a machine. Gruner is at his melodramatic best while he examines what it is like to lose a piece of his humanity time after time...

Finally, a semblance of a plot emerges! After spending a year as a smuggler, Alex finds himself back in the hands of LAPD big shot Farnsworth (Tim Thomerson, Trancers. ). Farnsworth describes Rain’s new assignment. Apparently, the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Japan are suppose to meet at a conference to discuss about how the two countries will integrate together both politically and economically. Unfortunately, it turns out that someone stole the security plans for the conference. Rain’s mission is to retrieve the security plans. This mission is personal because the alleged culprit is none other than Alex’s ex-lover...Jared (Marjorie Monaghan). Meanwhile, Alex must go to Shang Loo, Java and retrieve the plans before everything goes to hell. There is also a female guide named Max Impact (Merle Kennedy, The Perfect Storm) who somehow fits into this whole scheme. I have to mention her because she sounds like a teenage girl trying to imitate Jar Jar Binks! However, most of that information is really not that important. All you need to know is that Alex has no choice but to accept the assignment…or else the bomb in his heart will explode in three days…


So, What is Your Definition of a Really Bad Movie?
I do not know. Maybe I am crazy. Maybe I am a sadomasochist who enjoys pain. Or perhaps maybe I am just a gullible fool who is easily manipulated into seeing a bad movie after watching its groovy trailer. The truth is, I saw Nemesis and I absolutely despise this movie for stealing ninety-five minutes of my precious life. There is nothing I can do to gain back those lost minutes, but I can still warn others like you not to go see this movie, in spite of its oh-so-cool trailer. Chances are, prior to reading my review, you have never heard of Nemesis. Well then, congratulations! Consider yourself lucky that you have the opportunity to read my review of Nemesis before you end up “inadvertently” renting a copy of this flick.

“Hey, you have seen a lot of bad movies! How could this one be any worse?” First of, this film is directed by the notorious Albert Pyun, the modern-day Prince of Schlock Cinema (who made such nutty drivel as Alien from L.A., Adrenalin: Fear the Rush, Captain America, et. al.). Yes, I had a slightly bad feeling about this movie after I saw Albert Pyun credited as a director. Despite my antipathy towards Pyun though, I still decided to check out Nemesis hoping that for once, Albert Pyun would make a decent film in his career. Besides, the film’s rental price was only forty-nine cents!

What truly sealed this film’s fate is the fact that it has almost no originality at all; this film’s so-called premise is merely a potpourri of way-too-familiar movie clichés which everybody has seen again and again (more details later). But wait, I have not even begun to talk about this film’s dull performances, meandering pace, the hokey and convoluted script, and style-less action. So in short, Nemesis is the ultimate example of a bad movie which goes far above and beyond the call of duty. Nemesis is certainly a suitable contender for anyone out there who thinks they can watch quite possibly one of the worst movies ever made and live to tell the tale…


Can you guess how many films Nemesis shamelessly rips off?
Well I’ll be damned, looks like the video clerk was right after all. Nemesis is indeed a bastardized version of James Cameron’s The Terminator. To validate this point, both films contain a cyborg vs. mankind theme as well as a twisted, apocalyptic vision of the future. That is nothing though, compared to what I am about to discuss next. In Nemesis, there is the climactic fight between Rain and a skeletal humanoid robot (created by using stop-motion effects) who looks like...hell, if you do not know what I am talking about, go see The Terminator.

Pyun manages to lift ideas from a diverse range of sources. Besides The Terminator, another such source is John Carpenter’s Escape from New York. How so? In Escape from New York, Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is implanted with an explosive in him which will detonate unless he accomplishes his mission. In Nemesis, Alex Rain is implanted with an explosive in him which will detonate unless he accomplishes his mission. Self-explanatory. As well, the concept of augmenting a wounded human being with mechanical body parts is notably similar to Robocop , and of course, “The Six Million Dollar Man.”

Believe it or not, I do not mind too much if a film imitates another film (or a bunch of other films), but please, develop some unique trademarks and style. The problem with Nemesis is that it does not have a style of its own. The filmmakers were so busy ripping off from other better-known sources that they practically forgot to add their own distinct flavor. When watching Nemesis, one gets the impression that this film is simply a compendium of science-fiction clichés pasted together as one whole picture.


Cyborgs vs. Androids: What the Hell is the Difference?
Here is the true kicker: why are androids called “cyborgs”? The “androids” in Nemesis are not stinking cyborgs; these androids are virtually artificial (though they “want” to be just like humans). You are probably asking, “What the heck is the difference between an “android” and a ‘cyborg’?” Androids are robotic creatures designed to resemble humans. A cyborg is a half human and half machine. It has some of the intrinsic characteristics of a human being. The cyborg’s body is also comprised of actual human parts. The reason I have to bring this up is because the filmmakers here do not know squat about the difference between an android and a cyborg. The filmmakers also keep referring to the bad guys as cyborgs when technically they are androids. (Hey, I may not be a scientist, but I do possess knowledge of sci-fi!) For the sake of simplicity, I have referred to the android bad guys as “cyborgs” since the film keeps calling them that name. (As an ibid, Gruner’s character was technically a cyborg, but he was only called a ”...very energetic human.”)

It also does not help that Nemesis has more plot holes than a bullet-ridden bad guy in a John Woo flick. Granted, most of the characters in Nemesis are suspect, but why do they keep changing their minds? For example, Max Impact claims that Alex “…should die for what he done.” Yet, a few moments later after they are attacked and Alex is wounded, Max says, “No die on me.” There are also a number of other contrivances (mainly how did Alex coincidentally encounter the terrorist woman who nearly killed him several months earlier) that will make you hurl.


Action and Special Effects
“Oh, who cares about the plot? I just want action!” If you are looking for action, Nemesis will disappoint you. Every filmmaker seems to be a John Woo fanatic these days. As you have probably surmised, Nemesis contains plenty of two-fisted gun-battles. In Nemesis, director Pyun tries to make the action sequences look aesthetic. He succeeds occasionally, but one cannot help but feel that this guy loves to copy John Woo. Case in point, the most notable example is in the beginning when Alex is sliding on his back while firing bullets from guns in both hands. Anyway, Albert Pyun has little to no panache as a director, and it shows in Nemesis. Yes, the explosions are certainly abundant, and there is a ton of gunfire, but Pyun directs these scenes in such a lackluster manner that one cannot help but think of the phrase “ho-hum.”

There are a couple of action scenes worth highlighting. One such action sequence is where Gruner must shoot through the floor underneath him in order to provide his own escape route. There is also another sequence where Alex and his friend decide to jump off a cliff and dive into a river. Maybe it is just a personal opinion, but looks like a subtle homage to The Fugitive, particularly the scene where Harrison Ford’s character “takes the plunge” for the sake of eluding Tommy Lee Jones.

Meanwhile, the special effects are nothing to write home about, but there are some pretty cool cybernetic effects. One standout effect is when one of the cyborgs is hit by a bombardment of bullets. She suffers so much damage that she is literally blown in half. Despite the fact that she’s missing her lower half, amazingly, she is still in the mood to put up a fight! Another interesting special effect is watching Julian (Deborah Shelton) perform “optometry” on Alex in order to remove a homing device on his eye.


Performances
Pathetic drama along with pathetic performances…enough said. Since this is ostensibly a low budget action flick, the producers could not afford to hire some decent first-rate actors. So instead, the cast of Nemesis is chock full of exploitation veterans (Tim Thomerson, Brion James) and actors who never quite made it big (Thom Mathews of Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives fame). It is pointless for me to waste my time criticizing the poor performances so I will just focus on star Olivier Gruner. Granted, Gruner may be a terrific martial artist and athlete, but acting is obviously not his forte—plus he also lacks an important attribute: charisma. He fails to breathe any life into what is obviously a stereotyped wisecracking good guy.

Gruner tries to show a glimmer of sensitivity when he delivers such lines as “I can’t feel anything anymore. You turned me into a f***ing machine.” But he turns out looking stilted instead. He also spends way too much time spouting stupid wisecracks. For example, in one scene when a bunch of goons meet him at a motel, Gruner warns, “Leave me alone.” One of the goons then punches him, and he quickly replies, “I guess ‘leave me alone’ means something different here. Or are you too stupid to get it?”

Some decent acting would have helped…but it seems that the performers were so preoccupied trying to speak in different accents that they forgot how to act! Well…at least Tim Thomerson does not embarrass himself too much. On another note, Deborah Shelton is topless in one scene. Trust me, she is hot! It definitely rivals Halle Berry’s topless scene in Swordfish.


Errata
Hey, this movie even gives B-movies a bad name! Like many B-movies, the pacing in Nemesis is often lugubrious at times. Sometimes, we are forced to listen to countless minutes of patented padded dialogue filled with little to no insight about these characters.

On another subject, the post-apocalypse atmosphere and setting themselves eerily resemble those seen in Pyun’s earlier effort, Cyborg. Like Cyborg, the mise-en-scene in Nemesis is absolutely pathetic! The interiors look like they were shot on location inside an abandoned factory or warehouse. Meanwhile, most of the exteriors look like they were shot on location at some desolate waste site. If you are looking for panoramic sights, look elsewhere, PLEASE.


Final Thoughts
When all is said and done, Nemesis is a pretty vicious scab on Pyun’s already bad reputation. The point I am trying to make is that Nemesis is just plain awful on so many levels. I doubt that a film like this will win any fans. Action fanatics will most likely be bloody bored while sci-fi geeks will most likely giggle at the inept scientific goofs in this film. Unfortunately, foolish mortals with a strong curiosity like me sometimes have a proclivity to check out films like Nemesis, and as a result, I feel ashamed for squandering a small amount of my money on worthless films like this. My friend, watch Battlefield Earth instead (okay, bad idea...sorry).

Is there any truth in advertising these days? I think I have just answered my own question. Let this be a lesson to everybody who is reading this: do not judge a movie by its trailer. It happened to me; I was deceived by the film’s neat-o trailer, and regrettably, I lost both my time and my money. Unless you are a fan of S&M (stupid & moronic) movies, skip this one.

What I found even more appalling is that Nemesis managed to spawn at least three official sequels (!!) Albert Pyun directed ALL of them (!!!) Am I planning on seeing these sequels? Hell no!

(Side Note - If you would like to see the film's trailer, copy and paste this URL: http://us.imdb.com/Trailers?0107668
But don't say I didn't warn ya! A 56K connection or higher is recommended.)


Recommended: No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older
Special Effects: Well at least you can't see the strings