Nemesis (1992)

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In the future, cybernetic beings are replacing humans with perfectly duplicated cyborgs which mimic human behavior and look the part. Oliver Grunner is an LA cop, Alex Raine, who is a human with cybernetic parts, who hunts terrorists for his department, under Commissioner Farnsworth (Tim Thomerson). What Alex doesn’t realize is that Farnsworth has been “replaced” with a state-of-the-art cybernetic recreation who is to lead a revolution with a plan to wipe out humankind.

There are characters like Angie-liv (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), Max Impact (Merle Kennedy, who moves like a monkey), Jared (Marjorie Monaghan, a “good cyborg” and once Alex’s lover before he discovered she was in fact an “it”), and Julian (Deborah Shelton, Jared’s cybernetic ally whose naked body actually looks synthetic) who are trying to stop the evil cyborg’s from the planned human holocaust.



The plot, with a lot of technical mumbo jumbo as dialogue to explain facets of the story play second fiddle to the non-stop action and you can most definitely see the John Woo influence in the grand ways director Albert Pyun and cinematographer George Mooradian stage action sequences. Gruner, in exceptional shape, even moves like Chow Yun Fat , at times, with how he shoots his various guns, particularly hand weapons.

Lots of buildings take abuse, sparks emitting when metal is blasted into, the ground exploding from missiles and bullets, trees in Java toppling, old factories no longer in use taking an ass whooping thanks to the stunt coordinators and action choreographers allowed to work their cinematic magic.

Lots of recognizable faces inhabit the cast, the aforementioned Tagawa, who appearance always brings a smile to my face, Thomerson who had to check his dependable personality at the door because he portrays a cyborg, Merle Kennedy who many might remember from Night of the Demons 2, Yuji Okumoto (a dimestore Java hotel owner who plays a more important role in the plot than first realized) some might recall as Ralph Macchio’s nemesis in Karate Kid 2, the late, great Brion James as Farnsworth’s right-hand man with a peculiar accent that turns him into a clown, a very young Thomas James, naked as a jaybird, holding up in a Java hotel room with Julian as they assess Alex’s motives from a distance, and Deborah Shelton who many will remember as the “woman of interest” for oft-tormented hero Craig Wasson in Brian DePalma’s classic Body Double.



Still, it is all about the action in Nemesis as Pyun just lets it all hang out, exploiting Hawaiian locations which substitute for Java, getting a ton of mileage out of areas like the Kaiser Steel Mill in California, among other places where he can allow lots of shoot outs where those discharging their weapons hit everything else than their desired targets it seems. Coolest scene could be where Gruner must escape from certain death by blowing out several floors under him in order to escape. Plenty of “cyborg effects” which should appeal to fans of “cyberpunk”.



I particularly love one scene where an old lady, picked on by one of Farnsworth's cybernetic henchmen, pulls a gun and blows him away! Haha, good one, Pyun! There's even one scene where Farnsworth petitions Alex to help him find a "rogue cyborg", Jared, who fled with certain data important in helping a renegade human terrorist group, where Gruner has long hair a bit too reminiscent to Rambo. Essentially, though, Gruner is a half-human robotic version of Rambo, able to take unrealistic abuse and keep forwarding ahead.



It's all about fun. I love action movies if they give me what I crave: carnage and destruction. Nemesis does just that. It was much to my surprise, although I don't know why, that Pyun has made something like four of these movies! Geez, Louise. If you want more of the Thomerson we fans of his know and love, I suggest Pyun's irresistible, Charles Band-produced, sci-fi action junk movie, Dollman. As you might expect, Nemesis does recycle storylines from other popular cinematic fare, but this is of no consequence to those of us who eat this shit up.