"Future Hunters" in search of a plot

[Fearless Freep]

Future Hunters was on my plate last night and wow...like a Chinese buffet, it served up a little of everything.

This movie had it all:  A road warrior desert car chase intro, a mystical religious artifact, time travel, kung fu warriors, amazons, pygimes, neo nazis with dreams of world conquest, a biker gang (of three).  It even had a young Robert Patrick (the T1000 from Terminator II), action star Richar Norton in a brief part, and a martial artist named Bruce Li.

The movie started out with a desert car chase ending with some exploding cars and Richard Norton as "Matthews", a mad max-type character with a really bizarre gun (for a few minutes I actually wondered if I'd picked up "Equalizer 2000" under a diffferent title).  This is the post-apocalyptic world of 2024 or so... Apparently he and a few others are looking for a mystical artifact, the headpiece to the spear supposedly used to stab Christ on the Cross.  It's bad news if it falls nto the wrong hands, but the good guy grabs it and is somehow transported back in time to the mid 80s.  He he runs into a coupld researching some acient archeological temple site (the same one that Matthews found the spear head in)  I guess the temple is somewhere in California because the couple is attacked by a biker gang ( of three ).  Matthews beats them off but gets mortally wounded so he entrusts the spearhead and some cryptic instructions to the young couple (Robert Patrick as "Slade" and Linda Carol ("who?") as Michelle.)    Michelle thinks there's something special about the spearhead but Slade thinks that Matthews was just crazy.  However pretty soon a bunch of people are attacking Slade and Michelle and trying to get the spearhead...and we're off!

The rest if the movie is a race to try to find out who's trying to get the spearhead, find out what the spearhead really is, and to try to ultimately unite the spear head with the spear shaft, which if done by the bad guys spells disaster for the world and if done bu the goodies means...the end of the movie.  Sorta like Highlander with the threat that if The Kurgan won the prize, it's very bad, but since MacLeod won...nothing much happens..except for maybe Highlander II, which was probably even worse than f the Kurgan won so...  Anyway the chase comes complete with neo-Nazis, mysterious characters with pieces of information, double-crosses, a visit to an oriental temple for a kung foo fight, and a trip to South America for several encounters with...pygmies, amazons, huns, and what I think is a Korean or Japanese army.  Michelle even gets a fight to the death with an amazon warrior (and wins naturally)

Anyway, not counting the intro, which is reminiscent of Road Warrior, or actually much more like an Italian rip-off of Road Warrior and the time travelling, much of the movie is really similar to Raiders Of The Lost Ark, if anything with even more story elements.  The race between the (neo-)Nazis and a handful of good guys to recover a powerful religious artifact that carries the charactersto various locales.  It's not really 'good' version of Raiders, but you can see a lot of effort went into trying.

Unforunatelly the movie itself suffers from a few flaws.  One is that non of the actors are really strong; you know you are watching a B movie just by the characters.  Also, Slade's conversion from 'skeptical boyfriend' to 'jack of all trades action hero' is a little too abrubt and unconvincing.  Especially since it doesn't seem the Slade is the real hero but Michelle is.  There are a lot of twists and characters, but they alll don't seem to really make sense or flow together (starting wth the beginning of why does Matthews travel back in time with the spearhead and suddenly everyone seems to know the couple has it...)  It also suffers that it has so many little scenes that seem to remind you that they are sorta cliched scenes that have been done much better elsewhere

It's not a bad movie.  It's a B movie with a lot of scope and good intent that never quite gets beyond B Action movie level.  Worth an afternoon viewing with some popcorn

[Fearless Freep]

and in some sorta of bizarre coincidence, I realized that both Robert Patrick and Richard Norton also played in "Equalizer 2000"...Norton even played a character named "Slade"

[Yaddo42]

I saw this years ago on TNT late one night, also thinking I saw going to see "Equalizer 2000" again after many years of wishing I could see that monument of low budget post-apocalyptic action film making, but I was wrong.

A little checking reveals that both films were directed by Cirio H. Santiago, and both have a release or production date of 1986. My WAG is that Norton and Patrick were signed to do both films around the same time, perhaps both were being filmed at the same time. But from what I remember of Norton's brief part in "Future Hunters", it may have just been a few days work at the end of production of "E2000" combined with left over footage from that film (the opening car chase).

Santiago has a long career in cheapo action, WIP and exploitation film directing and producing based in the Philippines, according to IMDB, so such cost saving techniques don't seem out of line. Lots of his titles ring bells for me, but mostly by reputation or having seen them on video store shelves in my youth. The one other film of his I know I've seen is another post-apocalyptic film, 1990's "Dune Warriors", starring David Carradine. That one retreads "Yojimbo", "Seven Samurai" and "Shane" among others, but also features Carradine wearing what seem to be his costumes from "Circle of Iron" and "The Warrior and the Sorceress" and even pulling out the old flute/cane/club that he has used quite often.

[Dave Munger]

I remember reading the back of the box of this one (I don't know if it was mentioned, but I beleive the spear is traditionally known as "the spear of Longinus", and the shaft is presumed destroyed) in a liquidation store called Penny Lane that's out of bussiness now. I didn't buy it, but I did get "Space Mutiny" (featuring the most glaring continuity error I've ever seen, a character is killed, and immediately shows up again a scene or two later), and 2020 Texas Gladiators (Italians trying to make 300 year old monestaries look like authentic burnt-up American shopping malls; surprisingly few rape attempts for an Italian movie). Maybe I should have put this in the flea market thread. Another thing I almost bought there was those shoes with retractible wheels.

[Fearless Freep]

it may have just been a few days work at the end of production of "E2000" combined with left over footage from that film (the opening car chase).

That actually wouldn't surprise me.  The funny thing is that throwing that footage in actually makes no sense.  If he travels back in time from 2024 to 198? with an artifact that's 2000 years old, that means the spearhead exists twice in the same time.  So why is everyone so hot to get that one?  They would've been better off just leaving that part out and having the couple find the spearhead some other way

the spear is traditionally known as "the spear of Longinus"

I read a series of books when I was yonger about "Casca Longinus", the roman soldier who thrust the spear into Christ and was cursed to wander the earth, never dying, as a warrior/soldier until the second coming

(featuring the most glaring continuity error I've ever seen, a character is killed, and immediately shows up again a scene or two later)

A classic MST3K moment

[Yaddo42]

Freep, that's why I think Norton's work was a cut and paste job, they had an actor with some appeal in overseas markets and in certain genres, some cool props, and possibly some unused driving action scenes from "E2000". Maybe Santiago figured that putting Norton in the other film for even a few minutes would add to the film's drawing power even a little, or considering his market perhaps he knows how to recycle and get the most out of actors who finish films ahead of schedule but have a set number of contracted days to work like Roger Corman has done in the past (eg "The Terror")

Would that be the "Casca" series of adventure books created by the late Barry Sadler, former Green Beret, songwriter of "the Ballad of the Green Berets", and other assorted misadventures in mercenarydom in Latin America later in life? I remember when those books used to be all over the used books stores, I was tempted to give them a try became of the various settings during different wars throughout history from the back cover descriptions. But after trying a few of the Mack Bolan and Remo Williams/The Destroyer books, I decided the long running macho mercenary book series, and there were so damn many, weren't for me.