The year is 2027 and man and machine have merged to create a new breed of superhuman. Alex (Olivier Gruner) is a Los Angeles cop who's main job is to track down terrorists who wish to destroy the new information age. When Alex becomes critically damaged in a confrontation with the terrorists he starts to question his beliefs. Abandoning his job with the police, he'll find himself once again drawn back into the crossfire as he's assigned a 'do or die' task to hunt down a rogue cop who's working for the terrorists.

Bit of a cult classic we've got here, we picked up the retail DVD recently to see if this nearly 20 year old classic has aged gracefully. Well the answer is yes and no.

The storyline of Nemesis is still as compelling today as it was back then, perhaps even more so. Whilst we don't have god honest cyborgs roaming around today one wonders how long it'll be before we do. There is a lot of philosophical issues going on here namely the idea of how much can you alter a man before he is no longer a man? How much can you alter a man before he no longer has a soul? Whilst it's true that amputees and people with general handicaps may well be the first to jump on the bandwagon for new cybernetic body parts (and understandably so), do we want to live in a society where people can buy new limbs and enhance themselves? What would that do to our society? Whilst Nemesis doesn't come up with any definitive answer to these questions it does make you think about it and in my book that's a good thing.

On the surface Nemesis may seem like a run of the mill sci-fi actioner but is deep if your willing to engage with it. Sadly the acting quality is patchy but it's OK. Brion James and Tim Thomerson put in great performances as the 2 main villains. Olivier Gruner is his usual stolid self here, OK but nothing amazing. Most of the other cast are OK-ish also. Apart from Tim and Brion's performances don't expect anything special.

The one thing about Nemesis that's not aged so well is the special effects. It's old fashioned (and cheap) stop-go motion. This movie came out really before CGI hit the big time and it shows. I would'nt say the visuals are terminally bad but they're certainly nothing special in this day and age.

Most of the action is gun based, very little martial arts going on that we usually expect from a Gruner flick but that's fine. There are a couple of action sequences that are pretty impressive, the scene with Alex falling through a building whilst shooting out the floors under him stood out for me. Action wise i'd give Nemesis a thumbs up.

There's a great dystopian feel about this movie, this is mostly created by using dark or arid locations, it also has coloured hues which add to the atmosphere a lot.

Nemesis is one movie i'd find easy to recommend, if it sounds like your cup of tea and you can pick it up cheap then go for it. One of the better 90's cyborg movies in my opinion.