NEMESIS (US - 1993) Directed by Albert Pyun. Written by Rebecca Charles (Albert Pyun). Cast: Olivier Gruner, Tim Thomerson, Deborah Shelton, Brion James, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Merle Kennedy, Yuji Okumoto, Marjorie Monaghan, Nicholas Guest, Vince Klyn, Thom Mathews, Marjean Holden, Tom Janes (Thomas Jane), Jackie Earle Haley, Jennifer Gatti, Borovnisa Blervaque, Mabel Falls, Branscombe Richmond. (R, 96 mins) In the late '80s, Imperial Entertainment was primarily known for acquiring Italian (DEMONS 2, THUNDER WARRIOR 3, SPECTERS) and low-budget American genre fare (BLACK ROSES, THE DEAD PIT). Run by brothers Sundip R. Shah, Sunil R. Shah, and Ash R. Shah, Imperial eventually expanded to film production with the 1988 Sho Kosugi actioner BLACK EAGLE, which co-starred Belgian full-contact karate champ Jean-Claude Van Damme. Van Damme, who played the bad guy in the 1986 camp classic NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER, already had BLOODSPORT in the can when he shot BLACK EAGLE, but they were ultimately released two weeks apart, with BLOODSPORT coming first and becoming an unexpected hit. Though he only had a supporting role in BLACK EAGLE, Van Damme's presence was hyped and it served as a symbolic passing of the torch of action B-listers from ninja icon Kosugi to kickboxing poster boy Van Damme. Van Damme was already committed to Imperial's WRONG BET, which was ultimately retitled LIONHEART when it was picked up by Universal in early 1991 after Van Damme scored three more B-movie hits with CYBORG, KICKBOXER, and DEATH WARRANT. And with that, the "Muscles from Brussels" moved on to the big leagues and was out of Imperial's price range, though they still had another project intended for him. Enter Olivier Gruner, a French kickboxing champion with a passing resemblance to Van Damme and little else. Imperial plugged Gruner into Van Damme's starring role in 1990's ANGEL TOWN (more on that below) and in 1993, Gruner teamed with Van Damme's CYBORG director Albert Pyun for NEMESIS, which would ultimately be the star's first and last great film.
Pyun's best days came early, directing 1982's surprise hit THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER but never really capitalizing on it. He ended up doing several films for Cannon in the latter half of the '80s (DANGEROUSLY CLOSE, DOWN TWISTED, ALIEN FROM L.A.), which led to CYBORG and, post-Cannon, the troubled CAPTAIN AMERICA for Menaham Golan's doomed 21st Century. Pyun's career after NEMESIS and into the 2000s was incredibly prolific but largely inept (best represented by his trio of Bratislava-shot rapsploitation outings affectionately referred to as his epic "Gangstas Wandering Around An Abandoned Warehouse" trilogy by film critic Nathan Rabin). In recent years, he's been slowed down by multiple sclerosis but maintains a strong presence online while trying to get his latest dream project--a self-referential Pyuniverse tribute titled CYBORG NEMESIS--off the ground. NEMESIS was an idea Pyun had been working on since his Cannon days, though with a teenage girl as the hero. He already had Megan Ward in mind to star, having worked with her on the Full Moon sci-fi film ARCADE (shot before NEMESIS but released after). With Cannon on life support and 21st Century faring even worse, he took the idea to the Shah brothers at Imperial. They liked the script but had one demand: lose the teenage girl and retool the character for Olivier Gruner, and in exchange, you'll be left alone to make the movie you want to make.
In a perfect world, NEMESIS would've catapulted Gruner and Pyun into the big leagues, but it wasn't meant to be. With the possible exception of THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER, it's arguably Pyun's best film. NEMESIS opens in the future Los Angeles of 2027, with cybernetically-enhanced cop--he's still "86.5% human--Alex Rain (Gruner) in a brilliantly-choreographed shootout with freedom fighters from a rebel faction known as the Red Army Hammerheads. Severely injured, Rain undergoes repairs and an upgrade and goes off the grid in New Baja for nearly a year. That's where he tracks down and kills prominent Hammerheads figure Rosaria (Jennifer Gatti), before he's found and reactivated by his old boss Farnsworth (Tim Thomerson) and his two flunkies Maritz (Brion James) and Germaine (Nicholas Guest). The assignment: retrieve stolen, top-secret national security intel needed for a US-Japan summit that's scheduled in three days. The culprit: Jared (Marjorie Monaghan), an android and Rain's former lover, who plans to sell it to current Hammerheads leader Angie-Liv (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), who's based on the Pacific Rim island of Shang-Lu. In true ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK fashion, Rain has until the summit to find Jared and the intel or a bomb implanted in his heart will explode. In addition a surveillance unit implanted in his eyeball will monitor his activities and ensure he doesn't go rogue.
There's more, including a duplicitous android named Sam (Marjean Holden); Rain forming an unholy alliance with Rosaria's vengeful sister Max Impact (Merle Kennedy); and Julian (Deborah Shelton), a cyborg associate of Jared, whose intentions are not what Rain has been told. Little is what it seems to be in the world of NEMESIS, a film that takes elements of cyberpunk and Hong Kong-inspired action and mashes them up into a wholly original film that feels like it was directed in tag-team, relay fashion by John Woo, Ridley Scott, Charles Band, and Cirio H. Santiago, and that's meant as a compliment. Though it may look like a B-grade BLADE RUNNER knockoff on the surface (even borrowing James, memorable as escaped replicant Leon in the 1982 classic), NEMESIS is overflowing with more ideas and imagination that it can handle (note how several of the male characters have female names, and vice versa, and how one major male character is revealed to be a reconfigured female cyborg--is NEMESIS the world's first non-binary existential sci-fi action movie?). In many ways, it's the 1990s equivalent of TRANCERS, Band's 1985 cult classic that starred Thomerson and utilized key elements of BLADE RUNNER and THE TERMINATOR but was more inventive and intelligent than it had any business being. Like TRANCERS, NEMESIS got a limited theatrical release but never went wide, topping out at 86 screens in late January 1993. And like TRANCERS, NEMESIS spawned a series of straight-to-video sequels of precipitously declining quality (two featuring future JOHN WICK director Chad Stahelski), all but one directed by a stumbling Pyun and none starring Gruner.
NEMESIS ended up finding a cult following once it hit video, though its devotees did a good job of keeping it to themselves (it's also of interest today for brief supporting turns by Jackie Earle Haley, over a decade before his comeback, and a then-unknown Thomas Jane, billed as "Tom Janes"). But with Van Damme enjoying significant A-list success at the time, Hollywood studios decided they didn't need another European kickboxer, leaving Gruner vying for video store shelf space with Don "The Dragon" Wilson (BLOODFIST) and Loren Avedon (THE KING OF THE KICKBOXERS and NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER 2 and 3). He had a busy career throughout the '90s as a C-lister whose films could be regularly found in the one-copy "Hot Singles" section of the new release wall at Blockbuster: 1995's kickboxing western THE FIGHTER was an early effort by DTV action maestro Isaac Florentine and paired Gruner with BEVERLY HILLS 90210 and future SHARKNADO star Ian Ziering; he had the title role in 1997's MERCENARY, opposite an unlikely John Ritter, which led to 1998's MERCENARY 2: THICK AND THIN, teaming him with HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE's Robert Townsend. There were also titles like INTERCEPTOR FORCE, THE CIRCUIT, INTERCEPTOR FORCE 2, and THE CIRCUIT 2: THE FINAL PUNCH, and he capped off another tenuously-connected DTV action trilogy with 2000's CRACKERJACK 3, which was probably a shock to fans of the Thomas Ian Griffith-starring CRACKERJACK as the second installment--where Griffith was replaced by Judge Reinhold (!)--was retitled HOSTAGE TRAIN. Gruner also co-starred in the one-season, 1999 TV series CODE NAME: ETERNITY, a Canadian import that aired on what was then known as the Sci-Fi Channel.
Born in 1960, Gruner isn't headlining these days, but he's occasionally directed himself in titles even the most ardent Redbox devotee probably never heard of, like SECTOR 4: EXTRACTION and EXECUTIVE PROTECTION, and he still turns up in bottom-of-the-barrel fare like Pyun's ABELAR: TALES OF AN ANCIENT EMPIRE, and had cameos in garbage like DIAMOND CARTEL and SHOWDOWN IN MANILA, where he turns up about an hour in with Don "The Dragon" Wilson and Cynthia Rothrock as part of a team of mercenaries that may as well have been called THE AVAILABLES. Early in his career, Olivier Gruner served a purpose as a second-string Jean-Claude Van Damme, at least until Van Damme started going straight-to-DVD, thus negating the need for a Gruner, which is clearly reflected in the declining quality of the gigs he started getting in the 2000s. And unlike Van Damme, Gruner never evolved into a good actor. But for a brief moment, he got to headline a legitimate cult classic with NEMESIS, which has just been released on Blu-ray in an extras-packed edition with two (!) alternate versions, because physical media is dead.
ANGEL TOWN (US - 1990) Directed by Eric Karson. Written by S.N. Warren. Cast: Olivier Gruner, Theresa Saldana, Frank Aragon, Tony Valentino, Peter Kwong, Mike Moroff, Lupe Amador, Daniel Villarreal, Jim Jaimes, Gregory Cruz, Mark Dacascos, Claudine Penedo, Lorenzo Gaspar, Tom McGreevy, William Bassett, Nick Angotti, Robin Ann Harlan, Julie Rudolph, Linda Kurimoto, Bruce Locke, Stephanie Sholtus, Lilyan Chauvin. (R, 106 mins) Gruner's career began inauspiciously with ANGEL TOWN, a project initially developed by Imperial Entertainment for Van Damme. Set in the mean streets of East L.A., it's essentially a SHANE scenario that drops a JCVD-like, former Olympic-qualifying kickboxer into the middle of a low-budget COLORS ripoff. Gruner is Jacques Montaigne, who arrives in Los Angeles to pursue a graduate degree in engineering. Unable to find any decent student housing, he ends up in a barrio neighborhood, renting a room at the home of Maria Odones (Theresa Saldana), a widow who lives with her son Martin (Frank Aragon) and her grandmother (Lupe Amador). Maria lost her anti-gang activist husband to a driveby shooting six years earlier, and since then, feared gang leader Angel (Tony Valentino) has persisted in harassing the family and trying to coerce Martin into joining his gang. Maria refuses to leave, finding an ally in embittered, wheelchair-bound Vietnam vet neighbor Frank (Mike Moroff). Jacques is hassled from the start, and quickly makes enemies after beating the shit out of several of Angel's crew, but as the violence escalates and the body count rises (starting with Grandma having a fatal heart attack after a home invasion), Jacques calls in a favor from Henry (Peter Kwong), an old Olympic buddy who now owns an L.A. gym. They work with Martin, teaching him to defend himself and after Maria is gang-raped by Angel's goons, Jacques, Martin, Henry, and Frank prep for the inevitable RIO BRAVO siege at the Odones house.
ANGEL TOWN has the makings of a solidly formulaic martial-arts outing, but until an admittedly lively finale, it's mostly awful. Director Eric Karson had made perfectly competent action movies before with Imperial's BLACK EAGLE and the 1980 Chuck Norris vehicle THE OCTAGON, but he's having an off-day here. Amateurishly-shot flashbacks set in France make little effort to hide that it's still Los Angeles, whether it's a cemetery with visible American names on the headstones or Karson's seemingly spur-of-the-moment solution being to plaster a misspelled decal reading "Parisien" onto a cab and having guys running around in checkered pants and berets in a depiction of Paris that's about as convincing as a Pepe Le Pew cartoon. Gruner being a terrible actor doesn't help, but for the most part, the fight scenes seem stilted and awkward (why is one brawl on a tennis court accompanied by wailing jazz trumpet?) and the dramatic elements sometimes have an almost surreal, Tommy Wiseau-like quality to them. Every scene at the university is mind-bogglingly bad, with a bizarrely misanthropic dean who openly insults the graduate students with no provocation and comes off like a woke doomsday scenario today, telling one young woman "I knew your father...he always wanted a boy...what a disappointment you must've been," and another "How can you be expected to bleed and think at the same time?"
Like a less hysterical companion piece to MIAMI CONNECTION, ANGEL TOWN is the kind of movie that feels like it was made by people who don't get out much, and where the serious drama comes off as unintentionally funny, while the intentional humor falls completely flat, particularly one bit that probably would've seemed cringe-worthy in 1990, let alone today: a Middle-Eastern student calls Jacques "frog," to which Jacques replies by grabbing the kid's tie and informing him "That's Mr. Frog to you, rag-head!" I realize this was a time of escalating Middle East tensions with Saddam Hussein, but even Cannon handled their shameless jingoism with a little more dignity and grace. It's Gruner's debut, so you almost have to cut him a little slack for having no acting experience and with a small-time outfit desperate to find a new Van Damme after he left them for greener pastures, but he's just in over his head here. Not even an experienced pro like RAGING BULL co-star Saldana (right before she enjoyed a bit of a career resurgence as Michael Chiklis' wife on the acclaimed ABC series THE COMMISH the next year) can elevate the C-listers around her, including Valentino, who, for the most part, comes off as the poor man's Trinidad Silva. ANGEL TOWN generated a minor controversy during its limited release in early 1990 when rival gangs caused a riot on its opening night at an L.A. drive-in, but that's really the most noteworthy thing about it. It was a fixture in video stores throughout the '90s, but with Gruner's deer-in-the-headlights thesping and its many moments of MST3K-worthy yuks, perhaps MVD's recent Blu-ray resurrection can give it a second life on the midnight movie circuit.
This drive-in and late-night TV staple was previously released on DVD by MGM as part of the late, great "Midnite Movies" line but is back on DVD once more, kicking off a rather random four-film Shout! Factory "Cult Movie Collection." A sci-fi satire on Women's Lib, INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS is a sterling example of early '70s exploitation trash as men in a college town are being screwed to death by a hot-and-heavy band of radiation-mutated hotties under the command of entomologist Dr. Susan Harris (Anitra Ford). The government sends in State Department security agent Neil Agar (legendary B-movie badass William Smith) to investigate. Teaming up with campus librarian Julie Zorn (Victoria Vetri, aka Angela Dorian, 1968's Playmate of the Year), and local cop Peters (Cliff Osmond), Agar is expectedly one step behind as one lecherous prof after another turns up dead. BEE GIRLS was directed by Denis Sanders, whose credits include 1962's WAR HUNT (the film debut of Robert Redford) and the 1970 concert film ELVIS: THAT'S THE WAY IT IS, and written by Nicholas Meyer, who would go on to direct such highly-regarded films as TIME AFTER TIME (1979) and STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982). It's silly and stupid, but it seems to know it's silly and stupid, which really helps. 1.78 anamorphic. (R, 86 mins)
THE DEVIL'S 8 (US - 1969)
This low-budget DIRTY DOZEN ripoff from AIP is sort of a hybrid men-on-a-mission/moonshine actioner that's noteworthy for its cult-ready cast and behind-the-scenes personnel who would go on to much bigger things in the coming years. Fresh off the ABC series THE RAT PATROL, Christopher George stars as Faulkner, a Federal agent undercover on a chain gang so he can stage an escape and round up a group of convicts for an elite mission: infiltrate and take out the operation of backwoods moonshine king Burl (Ralph Meeker). Among the convicts are Fabian, Tom Nardini, Robert DoQui, Joe Turkel, Larry Bishop, and Ross Hagen as Frank, whose brother was killed by Burl, who's also taken up with Frank's girl (Leslie Parrish). The clichés abound and the film, directed by Burt Topper, runs a bit long and would've been a lot tighter if it was cut down to 80 minutes or so, but what a fantastic cast. Expanded from a story idea by future 48 HRS/PREDATOR/DIE HARD producer Lawrence Gordon, THE DEVIL's 8 was the screenwriting debut of a pair of recent USC graduates hired by AIP: Willard Huyck (MESSIAH OF EVIL, AMERICAN GRAFFITI, INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, HOWARD THE DUCK) and John Milius, who would go on to write a ton of guy-movie classics like JEREMIAH JOHNSON, MAGNUM FORCE, APOCALYPSE NOW, and EXTREME PREJUDICE, as well as directing CONAN THE BARBARIAN and RED DAWN. There's some vintage Milius tough-guy jawing throughout and some smartass one-liners. When asked "How'd you get this job?" George's Faulkner growls "They had a popularity poll. I lost." Known mainly as a TV actor up to this point, George's big screen career never really took off outside of a friendship with John Wayne that kept him busy in late-period Duke films like EL DORADO, CHISUM, and THE TRAIN ROBBERS. He starred in the surprise 1980 hit THE EXTERMINATOR and had one of the all-time great death scenes as the villain in 1981's ENTER THE NINJA, but primarily became an in-demand TV guest star, B-movie and exploitation fixture by the late '70s until his death from a heart attack in 1983 at either 52 or 54, depending on the source. He's terrific here, more than adept at playing a gritty, cynical tough guy, especially when Meeker's Burl says "You're crazy" and a grinning, wide-eyed George simply replies "Yeah." You can definitely see and hear Milius' style popping up in its infancy throughout THE DEVIL'S 8, and while the film leaves a bit to be desired with its really draggy middle and the corny, repetitive, TV-level shitkicker score, there's certainly some historical value for B-movie addicts and Milius completists. Also with Cliff Osmond as Burl's dopey flunky, a young Ron Rifkin as a rookie agent helping Faulkner, and George's then-girlfriend and future wife and regular co-star Lynda Day (soon to become Lynda Day George) in an uncredited cameo. 1.78 anamorphic. (M, re-rated PG-13, 98 mins)
THE UNHOLY ROLLERS (US - 1972)
Cranked out quickly to cash-in on MGM's Raquel Welch hit KANSAS CITY BOMBER, the Roger Corman production THE UNHOLY ROLLERS is a meaner, grittier look at the world of Roller Derby. Chronicling the rise and inevitable fall of Karen (Claudia Jennings) as she quits her job at a cat food factory and aces a tryout for the L.A. Avengers, THE UNHOLY ROLLERS doesn't really break any new ground as far as these kinds of stories go, and gets off to a slow start, but director Vernon Zimmerman (best known for the 1980 cult horror film FADE TO BLACK) and veteran Corman screenwriter Howard R. Cohen eventually find their groove. It's helped by a strong performance by Jennings, the troubled 1970 Playmate of the Year who would die in a tragic car accident in 1979 at just 29. Zimmerman and Cohen take a risk in making Jennings' Karen a frankly unlikable, self-absorbed bitch from the start, and it makes a little too easy to see her downfall coming, especially when team owner Mr. Stern (Louis Quinn) makes obviously prophetic statements like "Every #1 started out as a #2." So, just the way Karen toppled the team's star player Mickey (Betty Anne Rees), so shall happen to her with the introduction of Beverly (Charlene Jones). Karen soon becomes an out-of-control liability as her success turns her into a monster and alienates her from her teammates. Jennings does a great job playing a thoroughly despicable person, and Zimmerman handles the Roller Derby sequences very well, probably with some assistance from editor Martin Scorsese, who made BOXCAR BERTHA for Corman the same year and would soon hit the big time with 1973's MEAN STREETS. Also with Roberta Collins, Alan Vint, Candice Roman, Victor Argo, and Kathleen Freeman as Karen's trailer-trash mother, who rejects a kiss from her estranged daughter and responds to her financial gift with "I got my cigarettes, I got my TV...what more do I need?" The packaging indicates full-frame, but it's actually 1.78 anamorphic. (R, 88 mins)
VICIOUS LIPS is still early Pyun, and he's already in decline in his only film for Empire Pictures. A sort-of companion piece to his 1986 film RADIOACTIVE DREAMS, VICIOUS LIPS centers on an all-girl new wave band called Vicious Lips, who've just hired a new singer, Judy Jetson (Dru-Anne Perry), rechristening her "Ace Lucas" before taking a lucrative gig on a distant planet. On the way, they crash-land and they're chased around the ship by a crazed wolfman-type creature. There's also a lot of fighting and yelling, and some extended rock montages. The whole thing ends up being some weird fever dream about Judy being driven mad by her quest to be a star. There's about ten minutes of plot stretched out to an interminable 81 minutes, though in all fairness, the songs are pretty good. VICIOUS LIPS is pretty much an amateur-night endurance test across the board, and it's hard to believe that it's by the same Pyun who showed so much promise just five years earlier with SWORD AND THE SORCERER. Like the similarly-derided Uwe Boll, Pyun can be a competent director-for-hire when he wants to be, but he seems to have self-deprecatingly embraced this whole "straight-to-video-era Ed Wood" niche he's carved for himself over the years. With its '80s time capsule look, effects work by Empire mainstay John Buechler, with contributions from the Chiodo Brothers (who went on to direct the immortal KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE the next year), I suppose VICIOUS LIPS is campy enough to have attained a small cult, and the climactic production number features a club MC who looks like ALF's hard-drinking uncle, but other than some of the music, there's nothing here. Still, Pyun's recent announcement that he's retiring from filmmaking due to health issues related to multiple sclerosis was sad to hear. The guy's been such a regular fixture in bad movies for so long that it seems unthinkable that he won't be cranking out any more. But he made one very good one and a small handful of decent ones, so we'll always have those, and fans of bad cinema will have...well, just peruse his IMDb page and pick something. VICIOUS LIPS may be terrible, but a part of me is glad that it exists. 1.78 anamorphic. (R, 81 mins)
Directed by Albert Pyun. Written by Kitty Chalmers. Cast: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Deborah Richter, Vincent Klyn, Dayle Haddon, Alex Daniels, Ralf Muller, Haley Peterson, Terrie Batson, Jackson "Rock" Pinckney. (R, 86 mins)
The making of CYBORG was apparently an arduous process. The budget was low, the project thrown together, and the director was fired during post-production. One of the cast members--Jackson "Rock" Pinckney--lost an eye in a mishap with a prop knife. According to legend, Cannon honchos Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus had deals in place to with Marvel to produce SPIDER-MAN and with Mattel on a sequel to 1987's MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, and both were to be shot simultaneously by journeyman director Albert Pyun (THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER) in North Carolina at the deserted DEG Studios. DEG Studios was constructed by Dino De Laurentiis for his short-lived DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group, which released a bunch of movies in 1986 and 1987 before going bankrupt by the end of 1987 (many DEG titles were held in limbo for years, such as BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, acquired by Orion and released in 1989, and William Friedkin's RAMPAGE, completed in 1987 but unreleased until Miramax picked it up in 1992). By 1989, Cannon was on life support from a string of costly, high-profile box office duds borne of Golan & Globus' quest to be respectable, high-rolling, Oscar-baiting A-listers; a bunch of standard-issue B-movies that were no longer making money (including many cheaply produced at their Apartheid-era South African branch that they denied existed); the ill-advised purchase of Thorn-EMI's movie division; and far too many dubious and impulsive business deals drawn up on cocktail napkins. Golan would leave the partnership and form 21st Century Film Corporation later in 1989, though Cannon would wheeze on until 1993 with Globus and, briefly, Italian schlock king Ovidio G. Assonitis (BEYOND THE DOOR, TENTACLES) running things, with occasional desperation Hail Mary's like 1990's LAMBADA that inevitably tanked and became industry punchlines. In short, Cannon's best days were clearly in the past, and they simply didn't have the cash flow to be dealing with big-budget superhero movies, as clearly evidenced by 1987's pitiful SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE.
In order to recoup some of the money already spent on their never-to-be SPIDER-MAN and MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE 2, and to spotlight rising star and "Muscles from Brussels" Jean-Claude Van Damme, whose 1988 breakthrough BLOODSPORT provided Cannon with one of their very few recent successes, Golan & Globus had Pyun use some costumes and some sets that were constructed for the abandoned projects and, with screenwriter Kitty Chalmers (apparently a real person), hastily assemble the post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller SLINGER, which ended up being retitled CYBORG by the time it was released in April 1989.
Dayle Haddon in the title role as the cyborg Pearl Prophet
The story takes place in the early 21st century, after a plague has wiped out most of mankind. Nomadic, vicious pirates roam the land. Cyborg Pearl Prophet (Dayle Haddon, a French-Canadian model who had a busy career in European softcore porn in the '70s--including the title role in 1976's SPERMULA--before playing Nick Nolte's girlfriend in the 1979 football classic NORTH DALLAS FORTY) has the key to a cure for the plague implanted in her brain and needs a "slinger"--a mercenary guide--to guard her on her trip from New York to the CDC in Atlanta. Enter "slinger" Gibson Rickenbacker (Van Damme), who takes the job but quickly loses Pearl when they're ambushed by a marauding band of pirates led by the ruthless Fender Tremolo (Vincent Klyn). Gibson and Fender have a past: Gibson is haunted by memories of a previous slinging job where he fell in love with Mary (Terrie Batson), the woman he was protecting and was helpless to stop her from being killed by Fender (Van Damme is not helped in these scenes by a hilariously awful flashback wig). Fender's gang also includes Mary's now-grown sister Haley (Haley Petersen), who's torn between her loyalties to the two men. Gibson joins forces with another lone traveler, Nady Simmons (Deborah Richter), and ventures to Atlanta to find Pearl and get his revenge on the nefarious Fender.
Vincent Klyn as Fender Tremolo
Cheap, disjointed, derivative (the most creative element is that all the characters are named after some kind of musical equipment brand or music term) but strangely entertaining, CYBORG also feels oddly retro for 1989, with a look and feel that seems more fitting for the string of post-ROAD WARRIOR ripoffs that petered out around 1985. And, despite being an American film shot in English, it almost feels like an Italian post-nuke since everyone but Van Damme appears to be dubbed. Pyun had CYBORG taken away from him during post-production, but he began selling his "director's cut" DVD, culled from a VHS workprint copy, on his web site in 2011, with more violence (CYBORG was apparently cut to secure an R rating), a completely different score, and without some of the reshoots he did back in 1989 (Fender's demise is different in each version). In Pyun's director's cut, Klyn (or the guy dubbing him) dubs every male character except for Van Damme, which was probably intended as a "placeholder" dubbing track until a final mix could be arranged. I haven't seen Pyun's cut, but by all accounts, the theatrical version supervised and edited by Cannon is the much more polished and professional film (and if Pyun's post-1980s output is any indication, I believe it). Pyun had worked with Cannon before on 1986's DANGEROUSLY CLOSE, 1987's DOWN TWISTED, 1988's ALIEN FROM L.A., and he directed most of 1989's JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (shot mostly in 1986) even though Rusty Lemorande gets sole credit. And there must've been no hard feelings over CYBORG with Golan, since Pyun's next project would be CAPTAIN AMERICA for Golan's 21st Century. MGM just released CYBORG--in its 86-minute theatrical version--on Blu-ray in a surprisingly solid HD transfer at a low price, so fans of this cult classic--yes, it has a devoted fan base--will definitely find that worthwhile.
CYBORG opened in theaters the same day as MAJOR LEAGUE, THE DREAM TEAM, and DEAD CALM, and it's a testament to how popular Van Damme was at the time that the film landed in fourth place. Van Damme was making a name for himself while still essentially a B-movie figure on the fringes of the mainstream, and was in a relentlessly busy period (with BLOODSPORT, BLACK EAGLE, CYBORG, KICKBOXER, DEATH WARRANT, LIONHEART, and DOUBLE IMPACT hitting theaters from 1988 to 1991) of building a grass-roots, word-of-mouth following and establishing his action bona fides before graduating to the A-list with 1992's UNIVERSAL SOLDIER and 1993's HARD TARGET. 20-plus years and countless straight-to-DVD titles later, with his recent turn in THE EXPENDABLES 2 reminding everyone that he's indeed still around, it's easy to forget how popular Van Damme was in his heyday, and he achieved it the old-fashioned way: by paying his dues and working his ass off.
CYBORG was a moderate box-office success and arguably Cannon's last hit (though Chuck Norris' THE HITMAN grossed a few million in 1991), and proved popular enough in video stores and on cable to spawn two non-Cannon sequels. 1993's CYBORG 2 had little relation to Pyun's film other than cyborgs and a brief stock footage shot of Van Damme in a dream sequence. Directed by former Cannon production assistant Michael Schroeder, CYBORG 2 was notable at the time for the appearance of a slumming Jack Palance--a year after his CITY SLICKERS Oscar--bellowing dialogue like "If you want to dine with the devil, you'll need a loooooong spoon!" as a cyborg named "Mercy," but back in 1993, no one knew much about second-billed, 18-year-old newcomer Angelina Jolie as "almost human" cyborg Cash Reese. Schroeder also helmed 1995's CYBORG 3: THE RECYCLER, which brought back the Cash Reese character but replaced Jolie with Khrystyne Haje from the ABC sitcom HEAD OF THE CLASS (1986-91). CYBORG 3 featured a cast that screams "1995 straight to video," including Malcolm McDowell as "Lord Talon," Richard Lynch, Zach Galligan (GREMLINS), William Katt as "Decaf," Margaret Avery (THE COLOR PURPLE), and Kato Kaelin, credited as "Beggar" in what must've been a real stretch.
THE SECRET OF NIMH didn't open nationwide until July 16, 1982, but it was given a limited release in a few markets two weeks earlier. The animated film was much-hyped at the time because it was the debut effort from former Disney staffer Don Bluth. It may be hard to believe now, but there was a time when Disney animation was in decline. The films were getting more expensive and time-consuming to produce, and the focus had shifted to television. By 1980, Bluth decided to leave Disney and took a number of animators with him. In 1982, the independently-produced THE SECRET OF NIMH, based on Robert C. O'Brien's children's book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, was distributed by United Artists to much critical acclaim and moderately successful box office. The film, about widowed field mouse Mrs. Brisby, who encounters a secret society of super-intelligent former lab rats in her quest to move her home and her children out of the path of Farmer Fitzgibbons' field plow, was so expensive to produce for the new Don Bluth Productions that the company ended up filing for bankruptcy despite the success of the film. Bluth and his team quickly rebounded by forming The Bluth Group and designing the animation for the arcade games DRAGON'S LAIR and SPACE ACE, but even that was short-lived when arcade game popularity began to wane shortly after.
Bluth eventually hit his stride when he found a benefactor in Steven Spielberg, who produced 1986's AN AMERICAN TAIL, which quickly became the highest-grossing non-Disney animated film. By that point, Disney was licking its wounds with the tanking of 1985's THE BLACK CAULDRON and their animation department was barely showing a pulse. In 1988, Bluth and Spielberg released THE LAND BEFORE TIME, and on the same day, Disney released its animation comeback OLIVER & COMPANY. Bluth's film was the bigger success at the box office, and for a brief time, his was the biggest name in animation, and while he continued to make high-profile films like ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN (1989), ROCK-A-DOODLE (1992), THUMBELINA (1994), A TROLL IN CENTRAL PARK (1994), THE PEBBLE AND THE PENGUIN (1995), and ANASTASIA (1997), Disney eventually returned to animation dominance with THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989), BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991), and ALADDIN (1993) and they've remained at the top since.
A 1982 publicity shot of Don Bluth
Now 74, Bluth hasn't made a film since 2000's ambitious box office flop TITAN A.E., but has remained busy in the world of video game design and has written two books on the art of animation. Though he seems to have left the world of film, Bluth's name is forever cemented in cinematic animation as the guy who, albeit briefly, bested Disney. He had ambitions and saw possibilities beyond Disney's capability in the 1970s and made the ballsy decision to branch out on his own. And while he faced some financial stumbling blocks along the way, one could argue that Bluth's massive success with AN AMERICAN TAIL and THE LAND BEFORE TIME was the kick in the ass the complacent Disney needed to step up their game. Without Bluth bolting and taking other similarly frustrated animators with him, starting with THE SECRET OF NIMH, there's always the possibility that the Disney renaissance of the 1990s wouldn't have happened.
A publicity shot of Elizabeth Hartman as Mrs. Brisby
Dom DeLuise as Jeremy
John Carradine as The Great Owl
The voice cast of THE SECRET OF NIMH is headed by Elizabeth Hartman as Mrs. Brisby. This was the final film project for Hartman, an Oscar nominee for 1965's A PATCH OF BLUE. She struggled with depression and was just 43 when she committed suicide by jumping out of a fifth-story window in 1987. Other voice actors include Dom DeLuise as a comic relief crow named Jeremy, Derek Jacobi as the wise rat leader Nicodemus, Paul Shenar as the treacherous Jenner, Aldo Ray as his flunky Sullivan, Peter Strauss as the heroic Captain of the Guard, John Carradine as The Great Owl, Hermione Baddeley as Auntie Shrew, and early film credits for Wil Wheaton and Shannen Doherty as two of Mrs. Brisby's children. Bluth had nothing to do with the belated, cheap, and universally-reviled 1998 sequel THE SECRET OF NIMH 2: TIMMY TO THE RESCUE, which went straight-to-video and was directed by veteran TV animator Dick Sebast (FONZ AND THE HAPPY DAYS GANG, THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN, SONIC THE HEDGEHOG). Hartman, Shenar, Carradine, Baddeley, and Ray had passed on by then, and only DeLuise returned from the 1982 film, with other voices being supplied by Ralph Macchio, Eric Idle, Harvey Korman, and William H. Macy.
Backtracking a bit to spring 1982, it's worth mentioning that in this summer ruled by E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL, and with big box office takes for the likes of ROCKY III, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, STAR TREK II, FIREFOX, and others, Albert Pyun's THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER, released way back in April, was still a regular fixture near the bottom end of the top ten (or, in the case of this weekend, 11th place). The film, starring MATT HOUSTON's Lee Horsley and clearly rushed into production to beat CONAN THE BARBARIAN to theaters by a month, was by far the biggest hit (and final release) to come from the exploitation outfit Group 1. Group 1 would, on occasion, accidentally release a good movie like SWORD or ALLIGATOR or Lucio Fulci's THE PSYCHIC, but primarily offered drive-in and grindhouse trash like THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION, JAILBAIT BABYSITTERS, MEATCLEAVER MASSACRE, and NAZI LOVE CAMP 27 (Group 1 chief Brandon Chase left the movie business and, presumably with some of his SWORD AND THE SORCERER money, eventually founded the Beverly Hills-based Swiss watch company Chase-Durer). Early in its run, SWORD would consistently land in the top five despite being on just 660 screens at its widest release. As late as this, its 11th week of release, it was still taking in $1.5 million a weekend, now on just 309 screens with a $5200 per-screen average, a per-screen average that was second only to E.T. Pyun's film very quietly became a massive sleeper hit, grossing nearly $40 million and was in first-run theaters well into August, nearly five months after its initial release, which is the first and last time anyone could say such a thing about any film containing the credit "Directed by Albert Pyun." PORKY'S, released way back in March, was still landing as high as 12th place, with a total just under that of THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER. It's easy to forget that, unlike today when movies are released on 4000 screens and make $250 million in three weeks and are on Blu-ray three months later, things stayed at the theater much longer back then. PORKY'S was released in March. By today's standards, even if it made $250 million in theaters, it still would've been on Blu-ray a month ago.
These reviews originally appeared in slightly different form on the Mobius Home Video Forum in March 2011.
URBAN MENACE (US - 1999)
The trilogy kicks off with a horror film, where a bunch of Bronx thugs find themselves pursued--through an abandoned warehouse--by the vengeful ghost of Preacher Caleb (Snoop Dogg), who was killed along with his family in a fire started by gang warfare. As the Preacher (as he's ultimately called, even though the opening crawl mentions that he was merely a janitor, though at one point, he's referred to as an alderman) knocks off the gangstas one by one as they wander around the abandoned building, it becomes clear that his true target is crime boss Crow (Big Punisher, who died shortly after this hit video). Meanwhile, snitch King (T.J. Storm) is working with the cops against Crow and his top henchman Terror (Fat Joe) to secure a better life for his family.
URBAN MENACE is nightmarishly bad in every way. Visually, the film is nauseating, as Pyun uses a bunch of garish filters for a washed-out look that is simply unviewable. You can't even see people's faces most of the time. It's just a blurry white. Secondly, Snoop Dogg isn't in this nearly as much as his obvious stunt double is, and when Pyun needs a closeup, he repeatedly resorts to the same shot of a scowling Snoop. But the biggest--no "pun" intended--offender here is the acting of Big Pun, who turns in a "performance"--and I use the term loosely--that defies all description and comprehension. He's wheezing, mumbling, and making zero effort to hide that he's reading cue cards, and I'm actually not entirely convinced that he knew how to read. Not to speak ill of the dead, but man...Big Pun is unspeakably bad here. There's numerous pauses as he either a) tries to figure out what the next word is, or b) has to take a breath. You have to see it to believe it. It's a legit contender for the worst performance in the history of the moving image. Fat Joe is also reading cue cards, but he's at least a little more stealthy about it. It's also painfully obvious that neither Big Pun nor Fat Joe are even performing with the other actors thanks to some hilariously inept editing. Third-billed Ice-T introduces the film and functions as narrator. Also with future 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN co-star Romany Malco, shame of the Hudson family Ernie Hudson, Jr., Karen Dyer, Tahitia, Jahi J.J. Zuri, Rob Ladesich, and Vince Klyn from Pyun's CYBORG, back in another lifetime when Pyun made real movies. Almost all of these supporting actors turn up in the next two films. Storm went on to play the ridiculous Irish-Rastafarian gangster Maginty in PUNISHER: WAR ZONE. The best that can be said about URBAN MENACE is that it's only 72 minutes long, and about ten of that is credits. (R, 72 mins)
CORRUPT (US - 1999)
Ice-T takes a much bigger role here, as vicious crime lord Corrupt, who, in one of the funniest scenes ever, wipes out rival crime boss Yazu (Jahi J.J. Zuri) and his crew so he can take over. But he has to deal with ambitious gangsta MJ (Silkk the Shocker), who's threatening to undermine his authority. Plus, Corrupt wants MJ's older sister Jodi (Karen Dyer), who's dating Miles (Ernie Hudson, Jr.). Most of the action takes place at the diner Jodi runs. Well, I think it's a diner. It looks like a prop counter set up in front of a janitor's closet, and the only food items visible are half-gallon containers of Tropicana orange juice, a Coke dispenser, several bottles of ketchup, a single hanging bag of Chi-Chi's tortilla chips, and a big styrofoam cup full of straws. People come in and order pizza, chili dogs, falafel, and burgers, but there's no visible food prep/kitchen area. Amazing.
Corrupt promises to leave MJ alone if Jodi will let him hit dat azz, which angers Miles, which, of course, leads to a wild, continuity-be-damned shootout at, you guessed it, the abandoned warehouse. At the very least, this actually looks normal, minus the filters and all the goofy processing Pyun utilized on URBAN MENACE. It still looks like it was shot on a cell phone, but let's take what we can get. The actors are terrible, especially Ice-T, who can actually act. I swear you can see him laughing a couple times. Silkk the Shocker is awful, and obviously isn't in any of the locations at the same time as Ice-T, even when they're in the same scene together. It just looks like Pyun kept the supporting actors around and let the big ballers come in when they wanted. Pyun commits perhaps his most merciful act by having the closing credits start at the 59-minute mark. CORRUPT's running time: 66 minutes. Also with T.J. Storm as Corrupt's eye-patched flunky Cinque, Tahitia, Vince Klyn as "The Sayer," Romany Malco as an obnoxious diner customer, and Miss Jones, better known as Tarsha Nicole Jones, the former Hot 97 radio host who followed up her CORRUPT triumph with an insensitive parody song about the 2004 Asian tsunami. (R, 66 mins)
THE WRECKING CREW (US - 2000)
The trilogy reaches its thrilling conclusion with its most grandiose outing yet: a 75-minute epic with Ice-T as Menace, the leader of an elite squad of Detroit (still Bratislava) cops pitting rival gangs against one another. Second-billed Snoop Dogg is Dra-Man, a Chicago gang lord who is introduced via silent stock footage of a Snoop Dogg interview and a bunch of AP file photos of Snoop Dogg...then promptly exits the film after 20 seconds of stock footage from URBAN MENACE, most of which is his double. Two gangs, the Locs, led by Sly (David Askew, having the good luck to only be in one of these), and the 111's, led by Hakiem (the inevitable Ernie Hudson, Jr.), agree to a truce, which angers a third group, the Cartel, who corner the two gangs in...yes, an abandoned warehouse, as Menace's Wrecking Crew closes in to wipe them all out. There's actually some semblance of a coherent plot with THE WRECKING CREW, but it's ruined by Pyun's sloppiest filmmaking of the series: most of the dialogue is barely audible and largely unintelligible, and both of the major shootouts are stock footage of the climactic shootout from CORRUPT. That's right...Pyun plays the same shootout twice. Three times if you count CORRUPT. And there's a ten-minute stretch where Hakiem is doing nothing but frantically running from room to room, yelling, presumably for no reason other than to pad the running time. As the incoherence and foolishness reach a fever pitch, Pyun demonstrates his love for the hilarious fire effect in CORRUPT by repeating it in a similar, and equally hysterical, scene at the very end. Also with Vince Klyn, Miss Jones, Romany Malco, Rob Ladesich, and Jahi J.J. Zuri, turning in his finest work in the trilogy as Hakiem's twitchy top gun who repeatedly looks into the camera during the truce sequence. (R, 75 mins)
