# Nemesis 2: Nebula (1995)

### reviewed by
Richard Scheib

    NEMESIS 2: NEBULA aka NEMESIS 2

USA. 1995. Director/Screenplay - Albert Pyun, Producers - Tom Karnowski & Gary Schmoeller, Photography - George Mooradian, Music - Tony Riparetti, Visual Effects - Design and Animation (Supervisors - Benta Garcia & Jay Mark Johnson), Special Effects - Guy Faria, Nebula and Makeup Effects - David Barton, Makeup Effects - Maurine Wirgler, Art Direction - Rob Bowen & Tracy Hennigan. Production Company - Imperial Entertainment/Filmwerks/Toga Productions. Sue Price (Alex), Tina Cote (Emily), Chad Stahleski (Nebula), Tracy Davis (Sam), Earl White (Juna), Karen Studer (Zana), Shelton Baily (Tribal Chief)

Plot: In the 21st Century a perfected DNA child is created as the last hope against the cyborg dominated future. The child's mother flees with the child back through time to the East African desert in 1980. But the mother is killed by pursuing cyborgs and the child is taken and raised by a native tribe. But as she grows into womanhood, the child, Alex, sees the entire tribe slaughtered by a pursuing Nebula android. As the Nebula comes after her, she flees through the desert, coming to discover the super-human abilities inside herself as she fights for her life.

Albert Pyun is a prolific direct-to-video sf/action director. Almost all of Pyun's films - ‘Cyborg' (1989), ‘Knights' (1993), ‘Heatseeker' (1994), ‘Omega Doom' (1995) and this ongoing series of ‘Nemesis' films - feature kickboxing cyborgs and/or androids in post-holocaust or Cyberpunk settings. While Pyun's films brim with action their quality is generally not very good - it is characteristic of Pyun's films that he does not seem aware of the distinction between an android and a cyborg. The best of Pyun's films is the first ‘Nemesis' (1993) where Pyun fused his standard cyborg combat with a quite competent employment of Cyberpunk tropes.

This is the first of three sequels to `Nemesis' (which all appear to have been shot back-to-back). None of these sequels have anything to do with the first ‘Nemesis' other than featuring the common theme of androids/cyborgs trying to take over society. ‘Nemesis 2' slips more into being a ‘Terminator' copy with a killer android coming back through time to pursue a heroine (although the look of the killer cyborg takes it closer in spirit to ‘Predator'). There is no more plot to the film than that - the entirety of the film is like one single action sequence without pause. There are times that one wishes there had been a little more in the way of plot - like explaining more about what the two girls are doing and what is the significance the gold coins they are hiding.

That said Pyun makes a quite competent action film out of it. It moves with pace and the Arizona locations (standing in for East Africa) are impressively photographed. Some of the stunts Pyun stages are quite breath-taking - like one where heroine Sue Price leaps from a building at the same time as shooting at a flaming cyborg falling alongside her and holding a corpse as a shield from its fire. Price is the latest of Pyun's would-be discoveries which he has taken from a kickboxing/body-building background - following the likes of Olivier Gruner, Kathy Long, Keith Cooke and Jean-Claude Van Damme. All of the aforementioned look impressively lithe and can throw a backkick with the same lissome grace that a dancer can pirouette - and cannot act worth a damn. Certainly Price has an asexuality and a body-builder's muscularity that looks convincingly super-human, and with golden-bronze skin, blonde dreadlocks and cool blue eyes, she looks visually striking.

    Copyright 1998 Richard Scheib

Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews