Nemesis 2

The first one, while not great, was decent and this is a massive let down. A new actor who's even worse than the previous one and a meandering plot that's just a Predator rip off crossed with a bit of Terminator.

Ok the first one of these movies was bad but making a sequal is going to far. One the other hand it had nothing to do with it's predecessor. The first 1/2 an hour is all spoken in an African language and isn't subtitled. It is impossible to tell what anyone is saying and after about 30 seconds you stop caring. The "alien effects" were done by smearing vasaline on the camera when ever they filmed Nebula (the bad guy). The only thing worse than this movie was Nemesis 3 which was pretty much just footage from the second one scrambled out of order. I think they were supposed to be flash backs. The only notable thing about this movie is it had a member of the production crew with the unfortunate name Yolanda Squatpump.

Albert Pyun is the writer and director of many a straight-to-video action movie (just look on the bottom shelf of your local video store). Generally dreadful, his films are cocktails of bigger, better ones, but this one does stand out from the crowd. I first rented this a couple of years ago, and I actually quite enjoyed it. It's about Alex (body-builder Sue Price) who was adopted by a tribe in Northern Africa, after her mother was killed by theives. Raised by the way of the warrior, she's a tough kind of cross between 'Alien slayer' Ripley and 'cyborg dodger' Sarah Connor. However, she's completely human either. She is in fact genetically modified (as explained in an introductory voice-over) and can jump and run and fight much better than anybody else. So, when a cyborg (the Nebula of the title) is sent back from the future to kill, she has her work cut out. Yes, it is like T2; yes, the cybergenetic villain is basically the PREDATOR; and yes, the budget was about £2.50. But, it is very entertaining in a half-drunk, don't-quite-know-what's-going-on state of mind.

The action scenes are a tad flat, and of course there is a whole encyclopedia of cliches, but if you except if for a low-budget action movie, which it most definitely is, then you just sit back and enjoy it.

It's crap, but it's good crap, and at least it can admit it.

In 2077, the cyborgs have won the war against humanity which they started in the first part. Baby Alex is sent back in time to 1980, so she can safely grow up in the 20th century - and become the star of part 2. Stranded in Africa, the girl is raised by a native tribe who is one day attacked by Nebula, a warrior from the future. Her enemies did obviously discover Alex finally, and she has got only a knife at first to fight the heavily armored cyborg. So she is mostly on the run, also attacked by human enemies, (a rebel army), and on top of that, she also tries to rescue 2 American girls. Sounds like a mission impossible, doesn't it? But Sue Price in her first movie is quite a show with her muscles. Pyun dared giving the Stallone/Schwarzenegger role to a woman, and then look at the locations: a fight against a robot - that's something you'd expect to happen on a space station or a dark rainy city a la Blade Runner. Instead, Pyun takes us into a bright, sunny Africa (shot in Arizona, though) and the first third of the movie is just about Alex' initiation as a warrior, with dialogs in the tribe's language and subtitles. Strong colors and wide angle shots of barren landscapes make it look really good. The remaining two thirds of „Nemesis 2" are less remarkable: a constant battle, you can't get some popcorn before the next grenade explodes. Since the hunter has got a lot more technical options (radar, infra-red, audio scanning, laser, whatever), his prey stands no chance normally, but has a strong survival instinct. The ending titles already announce „Nemesis 3: Time lapse". 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.

I have a certain affection for the first "Nemesis" film. I know that everyone considers it to be pretty bad, but at least it was fast-moving and enjoyable. This first sequel doesn't have the original's non-stop action and narrative force, and it's awfully reminiscent of both "The Terminator" (in its "messianic" myth) and "The Predator" (in the look of the monster that pursues the heroine). But as B-movies go it's still somewhat above average, and Sue Price, the starring female bodybuilder, is not only impressively built but very appealing, too. (**)