Cyberpunk Babylon part I: Nemesis IV: Cry of Angels

What I intend to do is make this a first in a series of reviews of Albert Pyun's Nemesis movies.

I have a soft spot for the sequels to Albert Pyun's cyber-punk classic. I know most people consider them crap- and with good reason. There's just something about Sue Price. I don't know if it's because we share the same birthday, or I have a thing for muscular women, but I find Sue Price just awesome. Parts two and three of the Nemesis saga were fun, if unoriginal, Predator rip-offs with little of the spirit of the original film. In Nemesis IV: Cry of Angels, Pyun takes the lore in an entirely different direction, making an- dare I say it?- "arty" and trashy pseudo late night Cinemax Euro-skin flick.

The ending of 'Nemesis III: Time Lapse' promised Alex Raine's (played by female bodybuilder Sue Price) return to the future to be savior to mankind from the cyborgs. Pyun even showed Alex holding a big ass gun shooting at the screen and blowing shiznit up in the background. Instead of the war and redemption of mankind, we get a cheap looking (even by Pyun standards), excessively talky exercise in mediocrity, with Sue Price walking around naked in high heels 90% of the film somewhere in a deserted Eastern European country.

The screen announces that it is the year 2080, the humans and cyborgs live an uneasy peace, but in the wake of this war, mercenaries (both cyborg and human) have gone to work as assassins for various crime cartels. Enter Alex Sinclair (Sue Price), a sadistic assassin who is looking at one last job before retiring on the advice of her boss, played by Andrew Divoff. Alex kills the wrong target, and subsequently has to ward off all the assassins who come out of the woodwork wanting to collected the 100 million dollar bounty placed on her head. Unfortunately for them, Alex has enough more than enough gratuitous death-by-crunching between her muscular thighs to go around to all these suckers. All the while, Alex is constantly haunted by this lady in black who appears watching over her- is it the angel of death coming to do her in? You'll have to watch this wretched piece of shit to find out.

There were so many problems with this movie- where do I begin? How about the fact that all of Divoff's scenes are close up head shots? I kid you not, I almost feel Pyun pulled a Bella Lugosi and took Divoff's screen test and made it part of the picture. How about the fact that Sue Price is dubbed for no good reason? I prefer her actual voice, and the "sexy" voice they gave her just made for lots of unintentional laughs. The special effects were zilch, and just gross. I've seen better special effects from high school theater productions. There's a truly cheap and hilarious scene where Alex shoots a helicopter and the most unconvincing explosion ever happens on screen. The weird spike that comes out of her tits to kill baddies was a nice touch too. Oh, did I mention the laughable sex scene between Alex and the cyborg assassin where he has a synthetic cock and it goes in a hole in her stomach? The fact that it was excessively talky to try to mask the fact that they had a total of 10 dollars left to make this after they spent all the budget on the first half of 'Nemesis II'?

What I DID like was that Sue Price walked around naked most of the time (very hot) and that her lover was named Johnny Impact, and played by this guy who looked and dressed like Martin Gore from Depeche Mode.

This movie suffers from, what I call in Pyun film terminology 'Kickboxer IV Syndrome.' That is, the fourth movie in the series has little if anything to do with the past films, thereby requiring a huge suspension of disbelief on the part of the baffled (and probably pissed off) viewers. The same suspension of disbelief that would have us accept that, in Kickboxer IV, Tong Po had gone from a speechless Thai kickboxing champion to a "visionary record producer," "board certified psychiatrist" and Mexican drug lord in a few short years. Or that Sasha Mitchell would go from gym owner to DEA agent and prisoner in the space of three or four years. As such, I refuse to believe this movie was originally conceived of as part of the Nemesis saga. For one, Sue Price isn't Alex Raine (named after Gruner's character in the first), but Alex Sinclair. For another, her muscular physique is explained as having been from her excessively working out in this, whereas in parts two and three, it was because Alex was a genetically altered mutant. Price has a drastically different appearance here- gone is the earth mother/huntress get up, and in its place is this trashy S&M outfit and Marilyn Monroe white dress. Alex is also drastically different- she likes to have sex with her targets before killing them- or as one of her adversaries says to her "fuck 'em before really fucking them." One thing that annoyed me about her character was always asking her victims "did you hear the angels cry?" We get it, mr. Pyun. There are maybe three sets in this movie- and they're all this crumbling Eastern European ghost town where Sue Price can walk around naked and kill priests.
Like 'Nemesis III: Time Lapse,' 'Cry of Angels' suffers from the same problems as many Pyun films (think Max Havoc)- excessive flashbacks to other movies and scenes you've watched literally five minutes before in order to pad out an obviously short movie. Even with flashbacks and cuts to the other sequels, this movie runs less that 72 minutes. Fortunately, Pyun learned his lesson from 'Time Lapse' and didn't subject the viewer to THIRTY MINUTES of flashbacks in the first half of the film. Overall, I can't recommend this unless you liked 'Nemesis II and III, or really like to see hot female bodybuilder nudity. I'd like to say this was a new low in Pyun's filmography, but then again I've seen 'Deceit' and his Snoop Dogg movie.