Nemesis 3: Time Lapse Reviews

B-filmmaker Albert Pyun styles the third in his NEMESIS series like a comic book but with half the pages missing. Musclegirl Alex Rain (Sue Price) awakens on the East African plain with no memory, having been shot clean through the head. That she's otherwise in fine shape is attributable to her ill-defined superpowers as a "DNA mutant" bred to combat the evil cyborgs who have usurped mankind in the future. Alex was sent back in time to war-torn, 20th-century Africa for safekeeping, but cyborgs pursue. (In NEMESIS 2 she battled the monstrous "Nebula" model.) Bit by bit, her memory returns as she is examined by Farnsworth 2 (Tim Thomerson), lead cyborg disguised as a friendly soldier of fortune in the local civil war. Alex shoots him, then flashes back to the past 24 hours, when she was contacted by fellow DNA mutant Rane (Ursula Sarcev), hooked up with treacherous flesh-and-blood mercenary Edson (Norbert Weisser), and met FORREST GUMP-ish, brain-damaged guerilla hero Johnny (Xavier DeClie), whose combat skills and machismo return as he helps Alex defend herself against Farnsworth 2's posse of time-warping cyborgs. Even the sundered Nebula is reanimated and hunts Alex again, while slippery Edson changes loyalties to save his own skin. So what exactly happened to him, Johnny and Rane, and how did Alex get brainshot? She can't recall. The viewer must wait for the next sequel--NEMESIS 4. The cheat non-ending caps an installment that doesn't advance this cycle in any useful manner. The original NEMESIS (1993) was a men-vs-cyborgs actioner with the trappings of a crime flick. NEMESIS 2: NEBULA dropped such pretensions to be an outright TERMINATOR (1984) ripoff, with the gimmick of champion bodybuilder Sue Price blending both the Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton personas (with the acting talent of neither). Part three shotgun-marries the other two. Farnsworth 2 and his mob squabble over rank and rewards in a way that blunts the edge of their supposed inhuman menace. After the armored horror in NEBULA, the machine-creatures are back to looking like mere people with an occasional overlay of computer graphics, the best of which is a translucent, refractive bubble vehicle driven by two female cyborgs. These cybersirens (Sharon Brunea, Debbie Muggli), possibly inspired by the "cat sisters" from the Japanese anime DOMINION TANK POLICE, invariably look at each other and laugh inanely before firing at victims; this always gives Alex and friends the chance to escape. It's hard to believe that director Albert Pyun once interned with Kurosawa. Arizona substitutes for the "African" veldt and resembles the post-apocalyptic terrain of past "Pyun-ishments," such as CYBORG (1989) and RADIOACTIVE DREAMS (1986). (Violence, profanity.)