Future Force

This is a poorly conceived trainwreck. How this movie is rated R is a big question because there is nothing that would be restricted to anyone over 6 years old. Low budget? Yes, very low. So bad, it's good? No, not at all. Everything about this movie is terrible. If you can't go another day without seeing another Carradine movie, then go ahead. You can't make a low budget "future" movie. Well, not this low. Ticker signs and mini TVs with terrible graphics doesn't cut it. Sometimes he has that mechanical arm and other times not. Long stretches of nothing before any action. We do have afternoon soap operas for this. Everyone's energy level is very low. A 110 year old with diabetes in an assisted living home could destroy everyone in this movie. It's just boring and terrible.

Full disclosure: I watched this with the Rifftrax commentary.

After this watching this movie, I had to really think about the plot because I had no idea. It's only about 80 minutes long and it felt like they were padding for time. There is some silly action scenes that can be good for a laugh, but I don't know how someone saw this and said "yes, we do need another movie in this universe. The people need more."

In the future, law enforcement will essentially be out-sourced. These new police, known by the unimaginative acronym COPS, will not only arrest criminals, but also, in many instances, act as judge and juror. But the system can easily be manipulated. When a reporter threatens one of the owners of COPS, he has the reporter's name added to the wanted list with a sizable bounty and a message to kill. One of the COPS named Tucker (David Carradine) sees the system for the flawed mess it has become, decides to help the reporter, and is put on the execute list for his trouble.

If I had to use only two words to describe Future Force, I'd say it's lazy filmmaking. As an example, Future Force is lazy in the sense that, even though the movie is set in the future, very minimal effort was taken to make it look like the future. The only real futuristic aspect is the all-powerful glove used by Tucker. And, the filmmakers were so lazy they used it sparingly. Tucker uses a regular old non- futuristic pistol in 99% of the movie.

Another way Future Force is lazy can be seen in the acting. I can't remember one acting performance that stood out. Every one of them seems to be just going through the motions. The worst offender is Carradine. His performance is a fantastic example of an actor in it for the paycheck. It's easy to see he doesn't care at all about the finished product. Speaking of Carradine, he looks horrible in this movie. I can't remember ever seeing him look this out of shape. He doesn't look well.

You can see Future Force's laziness in the writing. The film is full of filler. There are scenes that add nothing to the plot. In fact, there are scenes where literally nothing happens. There are a few example I could name (people driving cars with no purpose, people doing absolutely nothing while hiding out, etc) but my favorites are a couple of rather lengthy shots of a guy having a drink. That's all he does - he pours a drink, sips it, sets the glass down, and picks it up for another drink. And it happens at least twice in the movie. It's about as lazy a job of writing as I can remember.

Future Force is another of those movies I could write about for days. The laziness extends to set-design, music, costuming, and on and on. But, as I always say, what's the point. It's a bad movie that doesn't deserve any rating higher than 2/10. In some ways it's not as bad as it is sad. Future Force is truly a depressing experience.

See it for the fight in the junkyard between Carradine and Tessier. Both appear so out of shape that the huffing and puffing could blow a house down. "Future Force" is a film that makes no sense, yet has moments of weirdness that keeps things going. The remote controlled glove is certainly a highlight. The zero budget shows through in almost every spartan scene. Product placements for whiskey, beer, and mixers appear throughout. Think of this as sort of a "spaghetti western" taking place in 1991, only following a standard exploitation formula with a mandatory strip bar, nonsensical explosions, and gun play that misses at point blank range. Truly this is good "bad" cinema. - MERK

David Carradine plays John Tucker, a futuristic cop who uses a robotic glove to combat a corrupt totalitarian government in this cheap action flick which has Carradine in okay form, despite being too cheap to work at being the type of action flick it tries to be. David Carradine is an actor who's career went straight through the crapper, after some promising movies in the 70's. After a failed attempt to bring Kung Fu to the 80's, he ended up making sub-par cheapies like this to stretch out his prolific filmography. Future Force walks the fine line between just plain terrible and amusingly awful. The production values themselves rival ROTOR and it becomes quite obvious that Carradine's pay cut consisted of at least 70% of the budget. What is somehow even goofier about the movie are the action sequences in which Carradine actually manages to use a remote control glove to fly and zap people. This of course adds to the fun of watching what could quite possibly be one of the most low grade science fiction movies ever made. Still you have to love Carradine's macho tough guy role who is so laid back that he seems more at home smoking pot then actually saving the day. David Carradine though has always seemed like a stoner (Well actually he is) and that is why we love him.

* 1/2 out of 4-(Poor)