Live Wire 2: Human Timebomb (1995 Video) User Reviews

Fighting fire with fire...

[fmarkland32 · 3/10 · 17 March 2008]

Bryan Genesse stars as Parker a super FBI agent who is captured by a renegade general who plans on using a robotic chip to control the actions of soldiers, of course Genesse overrides the chip and finds himself the only one able to stop a sabotage of a peace making treaty. Human Timebomb is a fairly mindless effort which occasionally has a few moments where the action sequences succeed, sadly though these are few and far between. The main idea is stolen from Universal Soldier but lacks the budget, star pairing and indeed the ambition of said film. The star pairing rather is played on to Bryan Genesse and Joe Lara, two actors who've never made much of an impression on yours truly. Genesse is actually okay in the lead role, as is Lara but the movie just is too simplistic, predictable and routine to even work passably well. The one thing going for this movie is that it is at least better than Nightsiege:Project Shadowchaser II starring Genesse and Hologram Man starring Lara. Aside from that though this movie is the type of forgettable fare that is only for a late night where absolutely nothing else is on.

*1/2 out of 4-(Poor)

This one is entertaining enough.

[tarbosh22000 · 5/10 · 28 January 2022]

Parker (Genesse) is your classic wisecracking FBI Agent. While not afraid to shoot or blow up things and get in the middle of the fight, he quickly becomes embroiled in U. S.-Cuba relations on his latest assignment. In the middle of groundbreaking trade talks between the two countries, a woman named Gina Young (Brooks) approaches Parker about her brother, who is being held prisoner in Cuba. Seeing as Parker just took down some dastardly drug dealers from there, the two head down to rescue him.

Seems like a rather straightforward mission, but the only problem is that the evil Price (Lara) has injected a newfangled computer chip into several fighters from around the world, turning them into his own personal army. Parker himself has been implanted with the chip along with them, and he has to fight against not just the baddies, but his own identity as well! Will he be able to fight the baddies, rescue the Young family, and save a much-publicized trade delegation from a...you guessed it...a HUMAN TIMEBOMB? Well, It's really just a guy in what we might call today a suicide vest, but it sounds a lot cooler to call the whole thing LIVE WIRE: HUMAN TIMEBOMB. Will it blow up in Parker's face? Or will he save the day after all?

LIVE WIRE: HUMAN TIMEBOMB is probably the best Bryan Genesse film we've seen to date. Around this period he seemed to be one of Nu Image's go-to guys, and here he finally gets a showcase for all his talents. He gets to be the smart-aleck FBI agent on the one hand, and a ruthless killing machine on the other. It's more or less a dual role. Plus, he gets in on a lot of action throughout the course of the movie. There's a lot of blow-ups, shooting, and fights, and Genesse is there for almost all of it.

It all starts out with one of the more explosive Drug Deals Gone Wrong we've seen in some time. We know they don't usually go right, but this one provides more firepower than usual. And who wouldn't be intimidated by that guy on the right? I'm scared just looking at him now, and this is a DTV movie from 1995. Imagine seeing him in real life.

While the idea of a chip (everyone's looking for the "other" chip in the movie - apparently there are two of them) that can turn already-vicious bad guys into supersoldiers is a good idea, and there is a lot of commendable stunt work throughout the film, around the hour mark things slow down considerably. It would have been hard to keep up the slam-bang pace of the opening sequence.

The Bryan Genesse-Joe Lara fight in the kitchen at the end was the fight we've all been waiting for, and it's a good one. It was enjoyable to watch these two duke it out. It was nice to see J. Cynthia Brooks get in on the action, as we'd last seen her in Coldfire (1990). She was a welcome addition to all the Genesses and Laras we know so well.

Director Mark Roper is no stranger to the site, as he's been behind the camera for several Gary Daniels films that we've enjoyed. The movie was shot in Roper's native South Africa, and it was his first action movie. He improved with his series of Daniels outings, but LWHT is a more than respectable opening salvo. His main error was making the running time 98 minutes. If the movie was shorter, it would have helped things along a bit better.

Interestingly, in some places this is known as Live Wire 2: Human Timebomb, presumably a sequel to the 1992 Pierce Brosnan movie Live Wire. In other territories, it is not a sequel. It's just a movie with a cool title. In the end, however, LWHT stands on its action scenes. They're well-executed, but seemingly the plot can't withstand the 98-minute running time. With a little editing, we'd be dealing with something outstanding. As it is, it's good. Better and worse movies would come from Both Genesse and Roper, but this one is entertaining enough.

Not quite as dreadful as it first seems.

[vkn · 11 October 2000]

The first few scenes make this look like a true recipe for disaster. Something like Tony Danza getting stuck in a sub-par John Woo movie (picture it...), with a seemingly stupid and predictable plot to go with it. But stick with the movie, and it becomes decent enough later on. The fighting and shooting scenes are very hard-hitting (one for the violence fans, then), and there's some clever enough camerawork in there. Even the plot turns out to be a little less hopeless than you first thought. Don't expect too much from this, but there's some decent enough beefy and violent entertainment to be found if you can look past the bad first impression this leaves.

Suprisingly entertaining low budget action film

[Nick_Dets · 8 August 2002]

"Relic Hunter" director Mark Roper goes for the John Woo action style here and the result is a surprisingly entertaining action film.

"The Circuit"s Bryan Genesse gives a decent performance as a wise cracking FBI agent sent out to bring down Cuban terrorists and help his kiddnapped friend. He is assigned to work with a sexy agent who is the sister of his MIA friend (played by J. Cynthia Brooks who later went on to make the adult flick "Intimate Nights"). Later in the mission he is captured by the terrorists and injected with a chip that programs him to fight with them. There are many excellently choreographed fights (Genesse helped in the martial arts choreography), cool shoot outs and an uncountable amount of explosions. It is definately a must for action fans. However, try not to examine the story too hard because it does get a little muddled.

2 and 1/2 out of 4