It’s truly remarkable to me that Albert Pyun managed to get so much mileage out of his Nemesis franchise despite a noticable lack of talent from every aspect of filmmaking that possibly exists. Terrible effects, abysmal acting, stilted action and an over arcing plot that stubbonly refuses to match up or make any sense whatsoever never seemed to slow the directors roll as his garbled Terminator rip-off just kept dragging itself on through the nineties, seemingly desperate for someone to find its off switch.
Still, whether we wanted it or not, along bounded Nemesis 4 with all the excitablity of a puppy, yet all the lovability of vulture-pecked roadkill to continue the director’s unshakable need to shoot footage of body building women shooting guns. However, while the existence of the fourth Nemesis (alternatively subtitled either Cry Of Angels or Death Angel; take your pick) raises plenty of questions, the most most pertinent one is most obviously: how did Pyun raise the cash for this? The answer proves to be rather obvious the second the name “SkinMax” shows up.
The future, it seems, is nude.
Apparently, by 2080 AD, the war between the cyborgs and humans has ended and both sides settled on an uneasy peace, but in the aftermath of a war the series never actually had the budget to show, most soldiers on both sides started working for crime syndicates. It’s here we find Alex, the heavily muscled mutant human who was once the last hope of humanity, but now spends her life as a woman who shoots people with her breasts randomly out as an assasin for the cyborg mob.
After getting a rather humiliating dressing down from her boss, Benardo, who dislikes her mountainous build during to the fact that it makes her stand out (boy, does it), Alex is given one last job to kill some cyborg jerk with more kinks than a hair salon (choice dialogue “I’ll retract my bollocks”). However, after arriving in the nigh-deserted, Eastern European city of Zagrev, she murders her quarry (naked, naturally) only to find that she’s murdered the wrong man. Quite how a professional assasin kills the wrong cyborg in a city with barely a dozen people in it is beyond me, but before she knows it, Alex is on the run from he old employers as she wanders from clunky set piece, to clunky set piece while having visions of a woman in black who watches her from afar.
However if, inbetween sizable bouts of “Cyber-fucking”, random nudity and long dialogue scenes involving Andrew Divoff standing in front of a black background, you were actually wondering if any of the many dangling plot threads left over from the previous films are addressed, you’ve obviously come to the wrong place as only fans of naked bodybuilders and weird, body horror, robo-humping are catered for here.
I understand that due to sizable budget constraints, Pyun was never able to nail the true vision he had for his misshapen, misbegotten franchise, but did it never occur to him to just simply give up? I guess not, if both he and returning star Sue Price were willing to turn to soft core porn in order to scrape together some cash to knock off yet another sequel.
Everything involving time travel, long lost sisters, the future of the human race and hulking robot bounty hunters is all swiped off the table in favour of sloppy neo-noir and endless shots muscley boobs and at times it feels less like a coherent film and more like we’ve accidently gotten a direct glimpse at what gets the director off. Pyun obviously puts way more importance on having his camera leer over every nook and cranny of Price’s statuesque form, or taking some time out to indulge in some goopy cyborg gore than actually trying to force the plot to make a shred of sense. Are we truly supposed to be cool with the former saviour of the human race suddenly become a sex obsessed hitwoman who engages in sweaty romps with her hits before crushing their heads with her trunk like thighs, but doesn’t have the common sense to want to see so much of a photo of her quarry before killing them. It’s 2080 AD for crying out loud – no one has a camera of any kind in order to stop exact screw-ups like the accidental killing of the son of the head of the Brazilian Cartel?
As Alex wanders around the same three streets of a deserted town, disroping, shtupping and shooting at regular intervals, you start to wonder if Pyun was trying to turn his franchise into some form of live action version of the kind of Japanese Anime that is loaded with that kind of thing. In fact, it’s all but confirmed by scenes where the cyborgs start sprouting weird, Cronenbergian protuberances while indulging in coitus – although it’s never truly explained why Alex suddenly has eye popping needles that emerge from her nipples when she’s not actually a cyborg.
I guess it can’t be easy making a movie play like the world’s most boring erotic fever dream, but having long drawn out scenes of dialogue where characters spell out their motivations and the plot in general certainly helps – even if Alex usually delivers hers as naked as the day as she was born while actually pumping her biceps with a piece of metal she’s found. There’s a weird aura of shame hanging about the place too as at numerous times, both Alex’s bosses, victims and companions constantly berate her about her appearance, either claiming she’s “not human enough” or, at one point, refusing to have sex with her because of her intimidating build which now leads me to believe that the late Pyun might have been using Nemesis 4 as some sort of sex therapy or something as his obviously weakness for bodybuilding broads becomes more of an elephant in the room than Tarantino’s well publicised adoration for feet.
However, I have to admit, for all the weird shit that’s going on here (Alex somehow outwits a goon who has got the drop on her to suddenly reveal that – surprise – she’s naked and then throws a pipe at his head), Nemesis 4 is bizarrely a noticable step up from Nemesis 3 thanks to the change of pace and status quo.
Not so much a sci-fi/noir film than a slightly uncomfortable act of Albert Pyun giving out a bit too much information about what makes him tick, Nemesis 4 delivers slimy gore and copious erotica into the bargain at no extra cost. Lovers of trash cinema will have plenty to pick apart and enjoy (I was laughing all the way through), but as for anyone who actually thinks this film is hot, I suggest you take the film’s advice, say 10 Hail Marys and go to cyborg hell.
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