FUTURE HUNTERS (1986 or 1988 depending upon who you ask...)

DIRECTED by Cirio H. Santiago 

SCREENPLAY by Anthony Maharaj & J. Lee Thompson

STARRING  - Robert Patrick as Slade,  Linda Carol as Michelle,  Richard Norton as Matthew,  Ed Crick as Fielding,  Bob Schott as Baur,  David Light as Zaar,  Paul Holmes as Hightower,  Ursula Marquez as Amazon Queen,  Elizabeth Oropesa as Huntress,  Bruce Le as Liu,  Wang Chang Le as Silver Fox

PLOT - It is the year 2025 and the world is a post apocalyptic hellscape. 

Through the wastelands, the man they call Matthew seeks out the one thing that can change the past to avert armageddon  - the Spear of Destiny. The spear that spilled the blood of Christ has the power to turnback time and avert the war.

Matthew finds the head of the spear and is hurled backwards in time to the year 1986 where he rescues a young couple - Slade and Michelle - from a gang of bikers. Matthew is shot and fatally wounded in the process. Before he dies, he passes on his quest to Slade, telling him that only by finding the shaft of the spear and attaching it to the head can the spear be completed and future history changed for the better.

Slade and Michelle embark upon a globetrotting quest to find the second part of the spear. In thier way stands an insane Neo-Nazi called Fielding and his private army of stormtroopers, an elderly Kung-fu master, a horde of Mongol Warriors and a vicious tribe of Amazonian warrior women.

Can the Spear of Destiny be re-formed and the apocalypse averted ?

PERFORMANCES  - From reading the above synopsis you can see that Future Hunters pulls a bit of a narrative switch in the early part of the story. We start off with a character that looks like he's going to be the film's hero for an extended period before he dies and we get to then follow our actual main hero.

This "red herring" hero is Matthew (or "The man they call Matthew" according to the movie's opening narration) played by Richard Norton. Matthew is your standard Mad Max style hero - he drives a battered sports car, wears black leather, carries a gun that also doubles as a rocket launcher and seems to spend his days wandering post apocalyptic desert landscapes fighting equally heavily armed gangs of leather clad punks.

It's not long before "Mad Matt" (can I call him that ? Yes, I can) gets zapped back in time to 1986 and dies heroically saving our actual main characters from being gang raped by a bunch of Hell's Angels. It's a pity Norton doesn't last long as he seems to be pretty good at playing the typical post apocalyptic badass, aw well...

After this first ten to fifteen minutes spent with Mad Matt, we then get to meet our two main characters who we'll get to spend the rest of the movie with.

Our new hero is Slade played by a ridiculously young looking Robert Patrick. Patrick of course needs no introduction to fans of sci-fi, he's most famous for playing the T1000 in Terminator 2, but he's also got lots more credits to his name in the sci-fi genre including his role as Mulder replacement - FBI agent John Doggett in the final few seasons of the X-Files alongside his appearance in UFO abduction movie Fire In The Sky. 

Taking this into account you'd naturally assume that this film was in pretty safe hands...well...what you have to remember is that this was one of Patrick's very first roles and he'd yet to mature into the decent actor he is today. He's not terrible by any means, but neither is he quite fully there yet. At times his voice goes from a gruff and gravelly sounding ''action hero" growl to a high pitched squeak which sounds like he's still going through puberty. Also some of his line delivery comes over a bit flat at times.

It doesn't help that Slade isn't a particularly likeable character. He spends most of the film posturing and grumbling about the quest he's been forced to go on like a moody teenager throwing a strop. Patrick definitely seems to be channeling his inner James Dean here.

Still, he is pretty good in all the action scenes (which are practically non-stop) and he does get moments where his later screen presence gets a chance to shine through. Everyone has to start somewhere.

Slade's girlfriend Michelle is our other main protaganist. Michelle is played by Linda Carol and her character is all over the place. She seems to alternate between either constantly bickering with Slade (the two seem to have a very toxic relationship), being menaced whilst wearing skimpy clothes, being the resident "expert" in archaeology (whenever the script calls for it) or being reasonably "badass" herself. This sounds like its quite a varied role but it doesn't quite work out like this - the character just gets pulled into doing complete 360 degree turns depending upon what the script demands. It just doesn't feel consistent. Carol does a game enough job but the character really is all over the place.

Ed Crick plays the movie's villian  - the Neo-Nazi Fielding. We can tell he's a Nazi because he wears Jack boots, has a photo of Adolf Hitler on his wall and says "Auf Weidersein" a lot when he's about to kill somebody (even though he speaks in an American accent the rest of the time). He also laughs maniacally...a lot. Fielding also comes out with some really good bad dialogue like "You remind me of a cat, you seem to have nine lives but even those nine lives can end." He's a very camp villian and a lot of fun.

Fielding also comes equipped with a standard evil henchman in the form of Baur played by Bob Schott. With his prematurely greying "bob" hairstyle and his hulking physique being squeezed into suits and safari shirts two sizes too small for him, Schott spends most of the film looking utterly ridiculous (he could pass for He-Man's grandad or "funny uncle"). He also appears to die on an exploding bridge only to then pop up again in one shot running alongside Fielding before totally disappearing for the rest of the film, I'm guessing the final shot of him was there by mistake, I really wouldn't put it past this film to do something like that.

SFX - Not a lot to speak of, this film is extremely low budget. The head of the spear glows in an "80's pop video" way at several points.

Other than that it's mainly explosions, explosions and yet more explosions. Did I mention that lots of things get blown up ?

SEX & VIOLENCE  - There are several attempts to "sex up" the two main stars. At one point we get a topless shot of Michelle as she's about to be raped. Note to filmmakers  - rape is NOT sexy, so don't even try to go there.

There's also one unfortunate moment where we see Robert Patrick running around in an unfeasibly tight looking pair of white underpants that leave little to the imagination. I could have happliy lived my entire life without seeing the T1000's ballbag, thanks to this movie I now feel like I pretty much have. Which isn't what I was expecting at all.

The violence is of the typical 80's action movie school - warrior punks from 2025, Nazi henchmen and Mongol warriors get beaten, blasted, shot and blown up at a rate of knots, usually by Robert Patrick doing a variety of OTT combat rolls whilst firing his machine gun (usually accompanied by a typical 80's synth-rock score blaring away on the soundtrack). The bodycount must number in the hundreds.

At one point the film turns into a kung-fu movie. We get an extended fight scene between professional Bruce Lee impersonator Bruce Le (see what they did there ?) and an elderly Kung-fu master known as Silver Fox.

Fists fly, kicks spin through the air (in both slo-mo and normal speed), Nunchucks are used, Slade gets kicked in the face and lands on his arse for being a silly twat and trying to join in. Its pretty well choreographed to be fair but ends rather abruptly when Silver Fox is shot dead by a passing Neo-Nazi sniper.

A rapey biker gets stabbed by the Spear of Destiny and dissolves away like Dracula.

An Amazon warrior woman has a gladiatorial fight with Michelle whilst standing on a log bridge suspended over "The Pit Of Death" (so called because its full of hungry Alligators). The warrior falls into the pit and gets her leg ripped off by an Alligator, she begs her Queen to kill her. Queenie responds by skewering her to death with a massive spear.

In a fight to the death Slade stabs Fielding with the Spear of Destiny. Unlike the biker earlier on, Fielding just dies a normal death. Why did some two bit henchman get to go out like Christopher Lee in a Hammer movie but the so-called "big bad" doesn't ? Maybe they'd run out of special effects money.

Finally, the tribe of Amazon warrior women are wiped out when the spear is removed from its cradle. Thier temple comes apart in a supernatural earthquake and the Warrior Queen and her tribe get crushed to death by polystyrene boulders that bounce like beach balls.

RATING  - This film comes across as if the producers involved went to thier local video rental store back in the 80's, hired out a big stack of tapes from the sci-fi and action section, went home, got streamingly drunk, watched the tapes and said "OK, we'll knick that bit, we'll knick that bit and we'll knick that bit. Oh, and there's the Ewoks in Return Of The Jedi - we can't knick them because George Lucas will sue us...I know, we'll make them into a tribe of Pygmies in the jungle and have them fight Mongol Warriors and Nazi's instead" (Note - this ACTUALLY does happen at one point in this film).

It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever but it's certainly fun. This film starts off as a Mad Max 2 ripoff, turns briefly into a Hell's Angels movie, then becomes a Kung-fu movie (complete with Bruce Lee impersonator), briefly turns into Arnie Schwarzenegger's Commando, drops into the jungle and rips-off the Ewoks in Return Of The Jedi, before arriving at it's final destination as a poor man's Indiana Jones film. I would say it wears it's influences proudly on it's sleeve but its much more blatant and unsubtle than that.

With it's crazy mash-up of other (more competent) films, it's still half formed future star and it's all over the shop approach to basic plot coherency we're firmly in the realms of "so bad it's good" here. I don't even mean that ironically - it's absolutely bloody terrible in every conceivable way BUT it's also a huge amount of fun to watch. For that reason I'm giving this 3 and a half adolescent T1000's out of 5. 

Grab a 6 pack of beer, watch it late at night and let the insanity wash over you. You'll probably hate yourself in the morning but how can you possibly hate a film that has normal looking tanks that make laser noises when they fire shells and ends with a final shot of Robert Patrick giving a big, cheesy thumbs-up to the camera ? The answer is - you just can't. Quality shite.

ART -