Justin’s rating: Well, time to go hit the gym, I guess

Justin’s review: I’ve always held a certain fondness for Albert Pyun’s Nemesis, an early ’90s cyberpunk flick that nowadays looks like someone decided to do The Matrix on the cheap (even though it predates it). Yet even though I’ve seen Nemesis several times, I never actually dipped into the several sequels that followed. So hey, what do you say — sequel marathon time? Let’s kick this off with Nemesis 2: Nemesis Harder.

Actually, the subtitle is Nebula, which isn’t really throwing any chills down my spine, but maybe it’ll make sense in context.

So the setup for this sequel is as clunky as can be, with text crawls, voiceover narration, AND on-screen action ham-fistedly trying to set this up. Apparently everything Alex tried to do in the first movie didn’t actually pay off, so the cyborgs started winning the war against humans for the next 50 years. Humans create a “DNA baby” with special abilities who is then brought to the past — 1980 — where her mother is killed and she’s brought up in tribal Africa. Twenty years later, the cyborgs get around to sending a bounty hunter after her, and the hunt is on in the year 2000. Got all that?

So what we have here is a rather roundabout Terminator clone (with a dash of Predator), only with a heroine — confusingly also named Alex (Sue Price) — who could clearly crush my skull with one of her hands. Seriously, she’s got an insane amount of muscle groups that you don’t tend to see in action heroines. Which is cool, mind you, just something I don’t see every day.

So Alex’s adopted tribe gets completely wiped out in the first 15 minutes by the TermiPredator, and she goes on a run in the middle of a country full of very shootable rebel scum. What ensues is an hour-and-a-half of cat-and-mouse encounters in locations that can best be summed up as “industrial buildings with easy access and no fire codes.”

While Sue Price’s Alex certainly shows promise as a no-nonsense protagonist (albeit one without much of a personality), there isn’t much else to recommend in Nemesis 2. The move to a rural locale set in the past means that all of the cool cybernetic technology and world-building of the first movie is virtually absent here. I also got beyond frustrated with the filmmakers constantly obscuring the TermiPredator with closeups, first-person views (complete with diary entries, no lie), and that semi-invisibility special effect. Once you see the TermiPredator’s full rubber suit, you may understand why movie camo was preferable.

I’ll keep watching this series, but man, this was as dull as a movie can be that’s still peppered with explosions, laser daggers, and time travel.

Didja notice?

• Nothing like starting a movie with a word definition!
• STOP WITH THE TEXT CRAWLS ALREADY
• Cyborgs love bad wigs
• Necklaces explain everything!
• This voiceover never stops
• It takes 12 minutes to get to the title
• Outrace the pig!
• This tribal guy is a really sore loser
• Laser dagger!
• This may be the first action movie where the girl gets *less* naked as the film progresses
• That is the SADDEST “plane” I’ve ever seen
• Running after a plane isn’t a good way to actually catch it