Tubi Saturday: Nemesis 3- Time Lapse/Prey Harder (1996)

 I can't review a Film that defines a Generation of Pop Culture AND a direct-to-video Action Film from Albert Pyun in one day.

As such, I bumped this one back to now.

The Film begins with Alex laying out in the Desert, covered in blood and confused.

This allows them to recap the last Film for around TEN MINUTES.

Joy.

The confused lady finally wanders over to find...Tim Thomerson?!?

Yes, he's back as another version of his Cyborg/Android Character, this time sent back in time to scan our Heroine and get her full DNA code.

This apparently takes 10 hours, which they remind us of about 43 times.

Depending on the shot, he's either this terrible CGI Model or Thomerson with random CGI accents.

None of them look good.
The danger of playing with your new toys in 1996.

She lets him scan her a bit and inject her with a drug that slowly restores her memories.

Something about her 'Sister' showing up.
Something about going back to a Time Portal.

She finally shoots Thomerson and leaves, wandering through the desert warzone.

Thomerson, meanwhile, is trying to fix the robot from the last Film and is using two Humans to do it.

What's funny is how they try to cover up the lady on the left, even though she's 'secretly' one of the Superhumans (aka Bodybuilders).

This pays off later, but boy is it a bad tease.

The Androids are causing all sorts of low-budget trouble.  Some are normal guys like Thomerson, while others are YET MORE lady bodybuilders.

If it had less explosions, it would be a weird Fetish Film...and it still kind of is.

Our Heroine tries to escape in a car, is blown up and...that was all just her remembering what happened already.

Oh good- one of THOSE Endings!

Oy vey!  This is a great example of putting good stuff in a bad package.

The whole way the Film plays out is just unnecessary.  Why not just tell it normally?
It was a silly flourish for Tarantino to do it, but for Pyun to do it 2 years later...no.

The positives- the fun action moments, real explosions, silly F/X and a unique Lead.
I'm not going to accuse Sue Price of being a great Actress here, but she does have a certain presence.

Sadly, she and many others here are wasted here when the Film is just so annoying to get through.
It will likely lose many people with the Intro, which is a shame.

The Film could have been an enjoyable romp with explosions and Action.  As it is, I lost interest far too early and it was hard to win me back.

As I approach the Series' end, I just think of who could possibly Star in a modern update.  I think that the choice is obvious...

A Film that has some fun moments, but boy is it a slog to get through it.  The Framing of the whole thing was just a big mistake.

Tubi Thursday: Nemesis 2- Nebula (1995)

 After the apparent success of the first Nemesis, we've got a series, baby!

This is the first Direct-to-Video Film in the Series, so let's jump right in...

So big old exposition time...

Cyborgs did take over.  Screw the last Movie, I guess.

In the Future, humans created Super DNA and impregnated a woman.
They sent her to the Past to raise the Child.

Any questions?
No questions?
Great.

The Mother and Child end up in 1980 West Africa (they don't narrow it down much).  The former is killed within a couple of minutes.

Villagers and Aid Workers raise the baby, who grows up to be this Lady Bodybuilder.

She passes the test to be a Hunter in her Tribe.

This jealous guy challenges her to a fight...and loses.

I'm in no hurry to fight anyone- especially after I just saw them cut out a warthog's heart!

The unseen Cyborg menace sends a creature- I guess it is the Nemesis here?- to the Past to find her.

A robot army sending back a killer robot to kill a lady- what a unique concept!

She sees the robot kill the remaining Villagers- it attacked while she was away learning of her origin- and escapes.

She runs across these two suspicious ladies and helps them in exchange for a plane ride to America.

Can she stop the killer Robot (who has a randomly posh accent)?
Can she avoid the many, many explosions?

Can a Film pass off Arizona as 'West Africa?'

To find out, stream it now.

Another collection of Action Scenes that is technically a Movie.  That's Albert Pyun for you though, right?

Why is this called Nemesis 2?
A bunch of Stock Footage from the first Film is used over random shots of a City with Text telling us the Plot that I recapped in the first section.

That Film was about then-modern-day Cyborgs trying to replace us Humans like The Skrulls in Marvel.  Now they just took over, but also none of that matter since it is set in the late '90s.

Supposedly Pyun wanted a Woman like Sue Price to be the Lead of that Film and he got her this time.  I hope she's good- since she's the Star of the next 3 Films!

If you're watching this for the Plot, what is wrong with you?!?
Big, buff lady fights people, fires guns and battles a killer Robot.

It was enjoyable, but forgettable.  Now if it was a different Suit, I'm in it to win it.

A big old collection of explosions, shooting and more explosions.  There's tangentially a connection to the last Film- at best.

Tubi Thursday: Nemesis (1992)

 A new 1990s Series for me to go through weekly.

This one is Nemesis by Albert Pyun (RIP).

Let's rock!

In the future of almost 2027 (it's catching up to us!), Cops have to stop Cyborgs and other technological terrors.

Olivier Gruner is Not Harrison Ford in a big, long (but fun) shoot-out/chase in what looks like Cyborg's reused Sets.

He's nearly destroyed, but rebuilt by the Cops.

In what feels like a different Film, Gruner- with a different haircut- randomly gets revenge on the Cyborg that nearly killed him.

Well, that was a short Film...

Nope.  

After some narration, we jump ahead to a year later where Gruner is now a pseudo-criminal.

He's blasted by a guy with his face gun.

No- I didn't make that up.

He's forced to work for the Police Chief- Tim Thomerson- and a German guy- Brion James- due to them putting a bomb in him.

What a unique concept.

They want him to track down the lady who betrayed him and the LAPD.

He ends up being betrayed by Thomerson- what a shock- and working for the rebel Cyborgs.

The villains are also Cyborgs, so...muddled message, much?

He escapes from the building by...shooting the floors out to drop away.

Is that where Underworld got that from?!?

He has to fight against Thomerson, who's a lifelike robot impersonating Thomerson's Police Chief Character.

Lots of running.
Lots of shooting.
Lots of stuff that is kind of like Terminator 2 (since they hired an F/X guy from it).

It's all dumb, crazy fun.

This one is fun, but also dumb...and also really pretentious.

This Film is a riddle wrapped up in an enigma.

It has this big, complicated Plot.
It can't stop cutting to long Action Scenes.
It has about 100 Characters that come and go.

To be fair, Gruner is not a great Actor.  He tries to be quippy and...yeah, no.  His accent and delivery also leaves something to be desired.
Mind you, me acting in French wouldn't be great either.

The draw here is all of the big, boisterous Action Scenes.  If you can just kind of skim through the Plot to enjoy them, this one is recommended.
It has a bunch of That Guys in it- from Sven-Ole Thorson to Carey-Hiroyuki Tagawa to Jackie Earl Haley- so keep an eye out for them.

Is it good?  No.
Is it fun?  Yes.

It has Thomas Jane (and he's not wearing pants) if that helps sell you...

A bizarre and fun Film that makes almost no sense.  I look forward to the Sequels- right or wrong.

'90s Trash?: Omega Doom (1996)

 Albert Pyun strikes again!  Omega Doom is a 1996 Film that is not all that memorable.  Here's what the Internet tells me- try to follow this.  Cyborg is the first Film in a Trilogy of Films (most famous for featuring Angelina Jolie in Cyborg 2).  Seems simple.  However, the Director made 2 different Films that *also* featured Cyborgs, so we get a second, unofficial Trilogy of Cyborg, 1993's Knights and this Film.  Somehow there's a Cyborg Trilogy without the Cyborg Sequels- logical!  The Plot of this one is basically 'What if Yojimbo was about Cyborgs?'  Initially I was thinking that this was a bit of a retread for Pyun, but then I remembered that I was mixing up The Sword and the Sorcerer (by Pyun) with The Warrior and the Sorceress (not by Pyun).  You can see the confusion, no?  Another key thing to note is that I'm not sure that Pyun ever learned what a Cyborg was.  The Characters here are Androids (Robots designed to look like humans) and not Cyborgs (Humans with robotic parts/limbs).  I guess there might be a fine line if you replace, for instance, everything but the human brain with a robot body...but that's not what happens here.  So basically, the 3rd part of Pyun's Cyborg Trilogy does not even feature Cyborgs!  The big Star here is Rutger Hauer, who clearly had a thing for Sci-Fi.  Would it be worth it today?  Let's find out...

In a dark Future (not to be confused with Greydon Clark's Dark Future), Humans and Robots battle.

Since this Film has a tiny budget, we only get to see 2 of them against a Green Screen.
Hauer's 'Cyborg' is shot in the head, which makes him forget his 'hate all humans' programming.

Some time later, he wanders to a small Village.

Since it is Yojimbo, there are two warring Factions (of supposed Cyborgs).

Since this, again, is cheaply-made, there are only like 6 or 7 Residents in total.

He helps out one 'person' who has been decapitated and who's head is being abused by one of the residents.

He's an Android, so its more of an inconvenience than anything though.

The two sides both try to get him to work with them.  I mean, it's Yojimbo.

Curiously, one of the groups (lead by Shannon Whirry) looks like they came out of The Matrix...which wouldn't come out for 3 years.

Will he work with them?

Will he just destroy them?

You know what happens right?

He defeats the bad guys, helps the good guys and recites some pretentious poetry (a requirement for Hauer, it seems).

Since not much interesting happens, here's Omega Doom from the Transformers Universe.

A pretentious, but pretty dry affair.  If you take away the Cyborg/Android stuff here, not much of interest happens.  A guy wanders into a mostly-empty Town.  He works with both Factions.  He betrays both Factions since they are evil.  He leaves.  That's the basics of the Story.  How you make it interesting is to first make the Hero interesting.  I love Rutger Hauer, but the part is so underwritten that he can only do so much.  His mild sarcasm helps...but not that much.  The next option is to make the bad guys interesting.  Yeah, no so much.  One of them wears random outfits (including a metal mask) and is angry all of the time.  Another group, as noted, are early Matrix fashion adopters.  Neither one does much of note, so that's not going to work.  The third way is to make the location interesting.  It's a mostly-empty, mostly-wrecked Village Set that has probably been used on 20 other Films like this.  To be fair, many Films have made good use of abandoned Sets (google Abandoned Film Sets to see some) to look the part.  Once you see this place once, you've seen it all.  They never go anywhere new- despite teasing a trip somewhere- so that's a no go.  The Film just has so little to offer, unfortunately.  If you like the pretentious kind of Bad Movies, this might work for you.  It would be good Rifftrax fodder, but I don't recommend it on its own.  Now I guess I need to track THIS one down too, huh?

Next time, a once-rare Vincent Price Film.  I found the VHS 'in the wild,' so is it a hidden gem?  Stay tuned...

Zoned Out: The Twilight Zone- 'Blurryman' (2019)

At last, the final Episode...of this Season.  We're already getting Season 2, so yea.

In the meantime, enjoy this send-off...

A Writer- Seth Rogen- finally finishes his Story, only to find out about the dangerous truth outside...

...and this is a fake-out.  We've gone META, as things go down on the Set while shooting.

It had to happen eventually.

The Writer- Zazie Beetz- begins to see a weird, shadowy figure.  It is documented throughout different shots from different Episodes.

When she starts to look into it, she finds herself alone in the Studio and things go badly fast!

Can she deal with the shadow?  What secret will it reveal to her/about her?

To find out, stream the Show.  It will keep you warm until Picard.

A weird, but respectful Episode.  I can't exactly go into the latter part without SPOILERS- so I won't.  Outside of that, the Episode plays with the conventions in a fun way.  You see Actors playing themselves, which they always like.  At this point, Seth Rogen has played himself nearly half as much as he's played someone else (don't check my Math)!  Peele has a fun time going from The Narrator to a version of himself, which was neat to see.  The actual Story of the Episode kind of telegraphs where it is going early on, but it's fun to get to the Ending.  It is neat how they tie it all to previous Episodes, even going so far as to reuse the Sets for locations.  I do wonder why they are all still there, but I always overthink things.  The Episode pays tribute in a different way to the original Series and plays with its own conventions.  Now I just have to wait until the Show returns...

Next time, there's...oh right, nothing.  Time to take a break for a while to talk about 23 other Shows.

(Very) Delayed Sequel: Abelar- Tales of an Ancient Empire

It took twenty-eight years to get made.  It took thirty years for someone to bother actually watching it though.  Let's step in the Wayback Machine for a moment, all the way to 1982.  I wasn't born yet, but Albert Pyun did make the film The Sword and the Sorcerer.  As a quality film, it sucks.  As a film to laugh at, it's awesome!  Seriously, get a double-bill of this and Hawk the Slayer for a damn good time.  During the credits, the film teases that 'Talon (the hero) will return in Tales of an Ancient Empire.'  While some may view this as a James Bond joke (of sorts), people like me actually thought that there was/would be one.  Well, after many years of talk, one was finally going to be made.  The cast was going to include Kevin Sorbo and Christopher Lambert- sold.  That never came out.  About a month ago, I randomly found this movie on Netflix, with no hype or anything behind it.  Oh yeah, no Lambert.  In spite of that, I decided to follow up and see how it was.  The results...are not good.  To find out more, you'll have to read on...

The film sets the bar really low with a very long and silly-looking intro.  To begin with, we have a Narrator- a bad one, at that.

Following that, we get a war in Abelar between evil demons and some fighters...which is done entirely in front of green screen.  No, really.

I should mention that the most awesome moments of action are...drawn.  Drawn well, mind you, but this isn't a damn motion comic!

The Sword and the Sorcerer featured an evil wizard who turned a bit demonic.  The sequel features vampires.  Clearly, that's what the series was missing!

I'll spare you most of the plot- mostly filler, but it features Michael Pare's kids trying to find him- but I will mention that the original lead shows up...as a random guy.  Kudos to IMDB for falsely-crediting him as 'Talon' too!

The only moment that's remotely-related to the original film: ten seconds of the infamous 'sword launcher.'  You don't actually see the prop though.  What was the point of that then?

This movie is really bad about pacing, mostly due to some obvious budgetary issues.  Pyun's solution: skipping scenes entirely and just saying that they happened.

After doing this with our characters being rescued, we build up to the final battle between the children and the evil vampires.  This has to be good, right?

WRONG!  Instead of any real action, the Narrator suddenly 'turns heel' and explains that the evil vampire was killed by Sorbo.  This happens by Pyun rubbing a still image of Sorbo against a drawing of a monster.  No, really.

Our suddenly-evil Narrator- did the plot turn her into a vampire off-camera?- explains that the Vampire survives...and appears in the desert.  Thanks for that anti-climax on top of another anti-climax.  The freaking End!

This was not worth 28 minutes, let alone 28 years!  Did Pyun write a script that would have cost $20 million, but all he could raise was $20,000?  If so, that would explain a lot.  *UPDATE- According to Wikipedia, the budget was $450,000.  There's a lot going on here...in theory.  There's a King hiring a mercenary to kill a Wizard, a bunch of vampires trying to take over the kingdom, some adults' quest to find their warrior father and a final showdown with a vampire trying to open a portal to another dimension.  Yeah, none of that really happens in any interesting way.  The first part- a dull, 10 minute scene in front of a green screen.  The second part- a couple people in front of green screens wearing cheap fangs.  The third- a tale of losers that doesn't even really go anywhere until 50 minutes in.  Finally, the showdown is, well, a cop-out.  There's more crap piled on here, including a random plot revelation that the father faked his death...to get away from his kids.  What if they hadn't been able to stop the vampire?  You would have doomed the world, you dick!  Honestly, I fell asleep while watching this movie.  Can you blame me?  The movie is amazingly-bad, poorly-paced and just feels cheap.  Green screens are not a replacement for sets, Albert.  If he really wanted to make a good movie, I feel a little bad for him.  This is Albert Pyun, however, so I kind of doubt it.  Time to one-up the random, historical name-dropping from Wake of Death...

Up next, the first of two Rock-less sequels starring Sorbo.  It's time for revenge, Texas!  Stay tuned...