Nemesis 4: Cry of Angels Reviews

NEMESIS 4: CRY OF ANGELS is standard straight-to-video, low-budget action fare with a wafer-thin story line spiced up by shootings, sex sequences, and cheesy special effects. In 2082, an unsteady peace exists between humans and cyborgs. After executing a target, cyborg assassin Alex (Sue Price) is given one last assignment by her boss Bernardo (Andrew Divoff). She does the deed, but is forced to also kill fellow assassin Earl (Nicholas Guest), who threatens her, explaining that she has mistakenly executed the son of a wealthy crime lord. After each killing, Alex sees a dark apparition that she believes is an angel. Later, Alex shoots down a helicopter full of killers before Bernardo's "cleaner," Tokuda (Norbert Weisser), arrives. He tries to kill Alex and admits that the crime boss has put a $100 million bounty on her head. Alex manages to kill Tokuda and two other hit men, but believing things are hopeless, she asks her friend Johnny Impact (Simon Poland) to shoot her and collect the bounty. While embracing Johnny, Alex sees the angel aiming a gun at them. She draws and kills the angel, who is actually Bernardo's partner, Mother (Blanka Copikova). Realizing that Bernardo was behind a set-up all along, they force him to call off the hit before killing him. The films of veteran action-schlock director Albert Pyun may not be good, but they always have their odd quirks. His fourth installment in the NEMESIS series is no different--it even has a cyborg-human sex encounter with graphic (and very strange) penetration shots. Lensed in 1995, the film is a choppy, exploitative action stew loaded with Pyun regularities such as dark, claustrophobic settings and languid pacing. For some inexplicable reason, it's shot in widescreen (like most of Pyun's films), making for a brutal series of close-ups when this dreck is seen in its pan-and-scan home-video version. Sue Price reprises her role as Alex Sinclair, a brooding, muscle-bound creature whose role consists solely of exposing her saline-enhanced attributes or blowing away cyborg goons. Ironically, although she plays a human in the film, her chiseled appearance and stony acting make her seem more robotic than the actors playing the cyborgs. Other performers, including Andrew Divoff, Simon Poland and Nicholas Guest (the only veteran of all four NEMESIS films), are equally amusing in their cartoonish roles. The special effects are of the lowest order, but makeup work by Dan Rebert deserves some note for his colorful gore and interesting cyborg facials. On a positive note, this film is still better than Pyun's theatrically released ADRENALINE: FEAR THE RUSH (1996), which is the work of a sadist. (Graphic violence, profanity, extensive nudity, sexual situations.)