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Apparently, Albert Pyun, director of the Van Damme film Cyborg, had a thematic "Cyborg Trilogy?" And this trilogy was made up of two other unrelated sci-fi tales? One was a 1993 movie called Knights, but I had very little awareness of it before I decided to check out the horribly named Omega Doom because it sounded cheesier. Plus, Rutger Hauer cheese is usually a good way to pass the time. Usually.
So, the plot: Long after a war between man and machine wipes out most of humanity, one soldier played by Rutger Hauer, our titular character...
Our titular character and machine is injured in the war, with his memory and purpose in life wiped from him. Now a drifter, he stumbles upon a ghost town where two different android gangs are on the hunt for a large stockpile of guns which is rumored to be hidden there, and he decides to play both sides so he can get some of the weapons himself. But no one there are his friends, and they don't trust him.
Yep. It's Yojimbo.
So, how this THIS Yojimbo hold up to the other Yojimbos? Shitty. Asbolutely. Impossibly. Once again, the only strength of this Albert Pyun movie is the cinematography. Otherwise, the first and foremost criticism is the crappy special effects. I think the Animorphs TV show was doing better than most of these effects. The headless android's body is FADED OUT at the end. You can see the fade not adjusting as this head turns himself. I mean, headless effects like this already beat this movie 18 years before its release with Alien.
As for the plot, the idea of turning the shipment of guns from A Fistful of Dollars into a secret treasure horde from after a world war didn't really have a lot of merit. It was basically just rearranging plot elements from A Fistful of Dollars and Yojimbo, compensating the shootout vibes Pyun couldn't possibly recreate with Power Rangers action direction and flashy (and bad) SFX.
The characters are paper-cutouts of previous characters with even less development, unless they're either trying to be Mad Max knockoffs or proto-Neos. They hardly even feel like robots most of the time as their programming is too human and not psychological enough to get into the mind of a robot to any great extent, and any development they could possibly get is resolved in the climax two seconds after it starts.
The direction and serious tone are the only things that make this poorly conceived movie watchable. But this "thematic followup" is nothing more than a failed cash-grab for an indie director trying harder than Jesus Franco typically did, and without the comedic undertones of Fred Olen Ray. Don't bother with Omega Doom unless you wanna make a list of all the Yojimbo adaptations and rank them.
= 23
Omega Doom
(1997) - Directed by Albert Pyun
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Cyberpunk / Post-Apocalyptic
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"We follow our program."
(1997) - Directed by Albert Pyun
--------------------------------------------
Cyberpunk / Post-Apocalyptic
-------------------------------------------------
"We follow our program."
Apparently, Albert Pyun, director of the Van Damme film Cyborg, had a thematic "Cyborg Trilogy?" And this trilogy was made up of two other unrelated sci-fi tales? One was a 1993 movie called Knights, but I had very little awareness of it before I decided to check out the horribly named Omega Doom because it sounded cheesier. Plus, Rutger Hauer cheese is usually a good way to pass the time. Usually.
So, the plot: Long after a war between man and machine wipes out most of humanity, one soldier played by Rutger Hauer, our titular character...
Our titular character and machine is injured in the war, with his memory and purpose in life wiped from him. Now a drifter, he stumbles upon a ghost town where two different android gangs are on the hunt for a large stockpile of guns which is rumored to be hidden there, and he decides to play both sides so he can get some of the weapons himself. But no one there are his friends, and they don't trust him.
Yep. It's Yojimbo.
So, how this THIS Yojimbo hold up to the other Yojimbos? Shitty. Asbolutely. Impossibly. Once again, the only strength of this Albert Pyun movie is the cinematography. Otherwise, the first and foremost criticism is the crappy special effects. I think the Animorphs TV show was doing better than most of these effects. The headless android's body is FADED OUT at the end. You can see the fade not adjusting as this head turns himself. I mean, headless effects like this already beat this movie 18 years before its release with Alien.
As for the plot, the idea of turning the shipment of guns from A Fistful of Dollars into a secret treasure horde from after a world war didn't really have a lot of merit. It was basically just rearranging plot elements from A Fistful of Dollars and Yojimbo, compensating the shootout vibes Pyun couldn't possibly recreate with Power Rangers action direction and flashy (and bad) SFX.
The characters are paper-cutouts of previous characters with even less development, unless they're either trying to be Mad Max knockoffs or proto-Neos. They hardly even feel like robots most of the time as their programming is too human and not psychological enough to get into the mind of a robot to any great extent, and any development they could possibly get is resolved in the climax two seconds after it starts.
The direction and serious tone are the only things that make this poorly conceived movie watchable. But this "thematic followup" is nothing more than a failed cash-grab for an indie director trying harder than Jesus Franco typically did, and without the comedic undertones of Fred Olen Ray. Don't bother with Omega Doom unless you wanna make a list of all the Yojimbo adaptations and rank them.
= 23