Action movie fans went a bit crazy over Nemesis on Twitter this week. I'd seen it once before but that was over a decade ago and I could barely remember it, so with the hype train in full effect decided to check it out again.
And much as I admire the action-community over on the Twitterverse, I think they may have over-reacted. Nemesis isn't bad, but it's also no lost classic and there's a reason the majority of moviegoers have barely heard of it.
The good news is the action scenes kick ass. Years before The Matrix was even a glint in the Wachowski's eyes, Nemesis brought Hong Kong style gunplay to Hollywood. Cybernetically enhanced killers tear cheap hotels apart, punch one another through walls and absolutely rinse their surroundings with bullet holes. Whenever the guns open up or the fists start flying, Nemesis rules.
It's the bits around the fighting that are the problem. There's barely any attempt at world-building so the opening sequence, while fun, is very confusing. Who is this cop with robot legs and why did he just blow that cyborg woman's head in half? Who are the people chasing him? Are they all cyborgs?
Once the initial adrenaline burst is out the way, Nemesis becomes a convoluted and bewildering mess. The hero is a renegade cop, but he was also in prison for some reason and he's recruited by a Government agency to hunt down some terrorists who are all anti-cyborg even though some of them are cyborgs and this involves travelling to a Pacific island and climbing a volcano and the Government agency might actually be the villains, and there's a clone and it might secretly be one character from an earlier scene who barely said anything...and what? What the hell is happening? It's a movie you have to pause halfway through, just to read the Wikipedia page and get some clarity on who the villains are.
Lead actor Olivier Gruner isn't great either. He handles all the fisticuffs and bullet dodging like the best, but when it comes to acting, he's not terrific. He reads his lines monotonously, is painfully wooden and makes even Seagal look like a classically trained thespian. He looks amazing when pirouetting in mid-air and firing grenade launchers at people, but is otherwise difficult to watch.
Nemesis is definitely overrated, but to its eternal credit, it was ahead of its time. There are some weighty themes on the blurring lines between man and machine and with its philosophical take on violence, was something of a bridge between action eras. Films with bigger budgets would copy these setpieces for decades (Underworld, I'm looking in your direction) and it's best viewed as a precursor to the likes of Blade, Equilibrium and The Matrix. Nemesis isn't great, but it does have a lot to commend it and it's definitely worth watching, if only to see where Hollywood pinched loads of ideas from.
And much as I admire the action-community over on the Twitterverse, I think they may have over-reacted. Nemesis isn't bad, but it's also no lost classic and there's a reason the majority of moviegoers have barely heard of it.
The good news is the action scenes kick ass. Years before The Matrix was even a glint in the Wachowski's eyes, Nemesis brought Hong Kong style gunplay to Hollywood. Cybernetically enhanced killers tear cheap hotels apart, punch one another through walls and absolutely rinse their surroundings with bullet holes. Whenever the guns open up or the fists start flying, Nemesis rules.
It's the bits around the fighting that are the problem. There's barely any attempt at world-building so the opening sequence, while fun, is very confusing. Who is this cop with robot legs and why did he just blow that cyborg woman's head in half? Who are the people chasing him? Are they all cyborgs?
Once the initial adrenaline burst is out the way, Nemesis becomes a convoluted and bewildering mess. The hero is a renegade cop, but he was also in prison for some reason and he's recruited by a Government agency to hunt down some terrorists who are all anti-cyborg even though some of them are cyborgs and this involves travelling to a Pacific island and climbing a volcano and the Government agency might actually be the villains, and there's a clone and it might secretly be one character from an earlier scene who barely said anything...and what? What the hell is happening? It's a movie you have to pause halfway through, just to read the Wikipedia page and get some clarity on who the villains are.
Lead actor Olivier Gruner isn't great either. He handles all the fisticuffs and bullet dodging like the best, but when it comes to acting, he's not terrific. He reads his lines monotonously, is painfully wooden and makes even Seagal look like a classically trained thespian. He looks amazing when pirouetting in mid-air and firing grenade launchers at people, but is otherwise difficult to watch.
Nemesis is definitely overrated, but to its eternal credit, it was ahead of its time. There are some weighty themes on the blurring lines between man and machine and with its philosophical take on violence, was something of a bridge between action eras. Films with bigger budgets would copy these setpieces for decades (Underworld, I'm looking in your direction) and it's best viewed as a precursor to the likes of Blade, Equilibrium and The Matrix. Nemesis isn't great, but it does have a lot to commend it and it's definitely worth watching, if only to see where Hollywood pinched loads of ideas from.