Omega Doom (1996)

Sadly Over-hyped

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Machines reign supreme in a bleak post-apocalyptic world. Rival factions the Roms and the Droids fight over a hidden cache of guns in a rundown old town. Salvation materializes in the unlikely form of shrewd and lethal hybrid automaton Omega Doom (a fine and smooth performance by the always cool Rutger Hauer). Director Albert Pyun, who also co-wrote the engrossing script with Ed Naha, relates the fun story at a steady pace, presents an intriguingly grim and harsh futuristic environment full of despair and bereft of hope, stages the showdowns with flair, and gives the whole thing a neat and imaginative "Man With No Name"-type spaghetti Western kind of gritty'n'groovy vibe. Moreover, the cast have a ball with the offbeat material, with especially stand-out work by 90's erotic thriller starlet Shannon Whirry as the pragmatic Zed, Norbert Weisser as a sage, much abused, and frequently disembodied robot head, Tina Cote as the ruthless and impulsive Blackheart (her big climactic confrontation with Omega Doom rates as a definite exciting highlight), Anna Katarina as a weary and gentle pacifist drone bartender, Jill Pierce as the tricky Zinc, Cynthia Ireland as the suspicious Ironface, and Jahi J.J. Zuri as the brutish Marko. George Mooradian's garish cinematography gives the picture a funky-punky bombed-out look. Anthony Riparetti's flavorsome score hits the rocking harmonic spot. A very enjoyable oddity.

No robot binge would be complete without at least one review for an Albert Pyun cyborg movie. Problem was that I had reviewed Cyborg, Nemesis, Nemesis 2, Heatseeker and Knights so I looked at what I had missed and here it was. The sad thing is that Omega Doom is actually probably Pyun's worst robot movie. I haven't seen Nemesis 4 but at 65 minutes, it's doubtful that Nemesis 4 would be as boring as this. This movie really bored me to tears. The plot is a rip off of Yojimbo with Rutger Hauer setting up two cyborg armies against each other and that's all there is to the plot. Literally the movie just has no other movement beyond that. Now i've seen Yojimbo, Fistful Of Dollars, The Warrior and The Sorceress and Death Wish 4:The Crackdown which use the same premise and yet somehow this one remains only marginally better than Warrior and The Sorceress and of course pales in comparison to even Death Wish 4. I would like to describe the movie but aside from the Yojimbo storyline the movie just doesn't have anything that interested me. Rutger Hauer is clearly at a career low, Shannon Whirry doesn't get naked from what I remember and the movie is just super duper dull. What the movie needed was some dumb action like in Cyborg and Nemesis, however this movie is just endless jibba jabba and that is the film's shortcoming. So, while this isn't the worst movie of my binge, this film is certainly well worth avoiding.* out of 4-(Bad)

I've always tried to watch all the films Albert Pyun has done, ever since I watched "Mean Guns". His way of directing is weird, his usage of special effects generally is bad, but I can't say I do not enjoy his films. Unfortunately, American straight-to-video releases of this kind seldom make it to my country, and cable TV every once in a while blesses me with them.Like "Adrenalin", "Omega Doom" is another of his apocalyptical future films, and like "Cyborg", there are cyborgs involved (redundant I've been called). The title character is a human-robot hybrid who arrives at a place where he finds two different kinds of robots who would normally be "killing" each other. Apparently, they are looking for guns for when "the humans come to destroy them", so they are in a sort of truce. Of course, and because otherwise it would not be interesting, OD (a.k.a. Guardian Angel) soon makes the two groups (which are composed of 3 members each) angry with him.The main problem with this film is that, albeit similar to "Cyborg", it lacks action. While Jean Claude Van Damme surely provides that, Rutger Hauer gives more acting, and keeps you all the film waiting for him to use a sword he carries. THere are a couple of badly-made short-lived western-like fights, yet I confess the final fight was better than expected.As for the performances, Rutger is Rutger. One will always like him. The bar woman is fairly decently played. As for the cyborgs, they were somewhat, if a bit exaggerated, believable. Tina Cotè playing BlackHeart looks so sensual, and her look will remind you of "The Matrix"'s Trinity, but not only this movie is older, Tina looks better!Concluding, this is a futuristic film. It lacks the depth of "Nirvana", the effects of "The Matrix", or the action of "Equilibrium". But if you were looking for any of these, you would not rent an Albert Pyun's film, would you?

Albert Pyun is really underrated. This guy deserves more attention on how bad he is. Bad as a director and writer, a couple of years ago I already declared him the Ed Wood of modern movie making. Sad thing about directors like Pyun is that they have no talent for movie-making but keep on making movies nevertheless.Reason why I watched this movie in the first place is because Rutger Hauer is in it. It's too bad that he is given awful material to work with, the script has some terrible dialogs.Still I can appreciate a big fat B-movie every now and then. B-movie's are always ridicules and awfully looking with terrible acting. In a way its always very relaxing to watch after a hard week of work. This movie is no exception. Fans of the genre and I know that there are a lot of those, will enjoy this movie big time. It has all the typical modern science-fiction B-movie elements in it.The special effects are laughable bad at times, especially for the character Head. The sound effects also made me laugh. Remember that Cain droid from "Robocop 2"? Remember that sound that he made when he walked? It's a kind of scary sound for Cain but a laughable sound when it is used for just normal human looking droid characters in this movie. It's really not fitting.Don't stop making crap Pyun! In a way I always enjoy it....I kind of like the cover though.4/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/