Future Hunters

It is hard to explain what was going through the director's mind when making a classic such as Future Hunters, but I have to admit it was pure genius because not only was this film amazingly a classic, but it had midgets, a big oaf nazi, and the best a night to day chase. I give this movie a A+, and want to thank Joe Bob for playing such a classic film, and keep on playing more like it.So if you haven't seen this movie really consider checking it out, it's a movie with so many bizarre twists and plot jumps, and not to mention characters coming out of nowhere, and a group of dwarfs beating a nazi soldier to death, so rent it or just better off buying it.

My review was written in January 1989 after watching the film on Vestron video cassette.

From the rash of look alike adventure features on video emerges a winner: "Future Hunters", in which prolific Filipino helmer Cirio H. Santiago outdoes himself in fresh and entertaining fashion.

Lengthy pic unfolds as a virtual homage to the high adventure movies of George Lucas yet moves beyond mere imitation into its own successful territory.

Prolog is set in the year 2025 with regular Santiago hero Richard Norton chased around by baddies in "Mad Max"-style cars and outfits. In a remote temple in the desert he finds the head of a spear, said by legend to have pierced the body of Christ on the cross and to hold spectacular powers.

Back in present time (1986, when pic was shot under the moniker "The Spear (of Destiny)"), statuesque blonde Linda Carol plays a college anthropology student who, with boyfriend Robert Patrick, visits the same temple Norton visited. Norton has traveled back in time via the spear's power, and helps the 1986 duo fight off a gang of mean bikers (who at first think futuristic Norton is a kindred biker, given his "Mad Max" leather garb).

Complicated plot, punctuated constantly by action sequences, has Norton expiring but setting the young couple on his mission, to unite the spearhead with its lost shaft, and use the resulting object's power tgo head off an imminent world holocaust and thus change the future from whence he came.

Elements of both "Indiana Jones" films plus a healthy sprinkling of "Romancing the Stone" are pleasantly arranged, with pic steadily put across by heroine Carol, an American beauty closely resembling Greta Scacchi. Her willingness to get her hair mussed and enter enthusiastically into the action is a big plus.

Patrick is merely okay as the hero and the villains are nondescript; more upscale casting might have earned this laudable little film some theatrical attention.

Jungle adventure? Time travel sci-fi? Post-apocalyptic action? Chop socky flick?: sometimes it's hard to decide precisely what kind of trash to watch! The answer to this dilemma... Future Hunters, Cirio H. Santiago's crazy crap-fest that mixes several genres and rips off a fair few better known films, but still manages to be a hugely entertaining one-of-a-kind experience.

The film opens with some Mad Max-style action, hunky wasteland warrior of the future Matthew (Richard Norton) blowing up an assortment of evil leather clad punks in his quest to find the Spear of Longinus, which, when placed on the original staff, has the power to save mankind. Upon finding this powerful treasure, Matthew is thrown back in time to 1986 where he is fatally wounded saving sexy blonde amateur archaeologist Michelle (Linda Carol) and her ex-marine boyfriend Slade (a young Robert Patrick) from some nasty bikers.

Before he carks it, Matthew entrusts the spearhead to Michelle and Slade, telling them to give it to a Professor Hightower, who will know what to do with it. The pair's search for the professor takes them all over the world, pitting them against power hungry Nazis, a deadly martial arts master, a bloodthirsty Mongol army, and a tribe of savage female warriors who guard The Venus Valley, the location of the spear staff.

As well as Mad Max, Santiago borrows from Raiders of the Lost Ark (Nazi's in search of an ancient religious relic), The Terminator (hero travels back in time to before the nuclear holocaust), Romancing the Stone (couple stranded in jungle), and even Return of the Jedi, a tribe of friendly native midgets helping out in a scene clearly inspired by the Ewoks battle on Endor.

It is, of course, extremely cheap and cheezy, with wooden acting and poor special effects galore, but it sure is fun, the best bits being one hell of a kung fu showdown between Hwang Jang Lee and Bruce Le (with Patrick throwing a few punches but getting his ass whooped) and a fight to the death over a crocodile pit between Michelle and an Amazonian woman.

7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

This movie is a mix of Kung-fu movies. Rambo,Raiders and other influences? the plot is about a Sword from the future and it must get to some tribe of Amazonian Women to make everything ok. I watched this movie and tried to figure out why i was watching it.

You can say a lot of harsh and unfriendly things about director Cirio H. Santiago (and most of them will still be too gentle), but he definitely was responsible for some nice footnotes in B-movie history as well. For example, did you know that he single-handedly launched the career of Robert Patrick? Half a decade before he became an immortal cult icon with his role as the stoic liquid-metal cyborg in "Terminator II: Judgment Day", Robert Patrick starred in no less than four Santiago flicks, including the horrible dud "Equalizer 2000" and this debut feature "Future Hunters". I'm not too sure if Robert still likes to be remembered of his collaborations with the late Cirio H. Santiago, though. Here, he walks around in tidy white underpants an awful lot and gets his ass kicked several times during the first half of the film (but mostly kicks other ass during the second half). Many of my fellow reviewers around here apparently consider "Future Hunters" to be pure B-movie Walhalla, but yours truly politely disagrees… The film is a rip-off potpourri of numerous great classics, but it isn't half as exhilarating and entertaining as it should have been. Cheap & exploitative rip-offs ought to surpass their role model movies in terms of over-the-top action, absurd situations, sleaze, violence and flamboyance – like several Italian flicks do, for example "Hunters of the Golden Cobra" or "Atlantis Interceptors" – but this one fails. The ideas are there, since the script steals aspects from monumental franchises like "Mad Max", "Indiana Jones" and "Star Wars", but they are all just very random and unprocessed. The story opens in the year 2025; with the brave warrior Matthew tracking down a Christian artifact in a devastated post-apocalyptic landscape. This particular artifact – a spear – holds the power to prevent the cataclysm from happening and its mere touch transports Matthew back to 1989. There he immediately gets shot by biker thugs (how about that, he's supposed to be strongest warrior of the future but he can't even survive 10 minutes in the 80's) and desperately begs a young couple to take custody over the spear and bring it to the place where it belongs. Michelle (lovely Linda Carol) and Slade (Robert Patrick) promptly find themselves pursued by Nazis, Asian mobsters and whatnot and they all want to possess the spear. How do they even know that this young couple has the spear? The race ends – after a lot of lousy martial arts fights and cheesy helicopter explosions – on a small island inhabited by midget Mongols and Amazon women. "Future Hunters" is allegedly co-scripted by the respectable director J. Lee Thompson, but I think he has very little to do with the finished product, since it carries all the inept trademarks of Cirio H. Santiago. This means a total absence of logic, suspense or continuity, poorly staged action sequences and a ridiculously high amount of cast members giving away horrible performances. "Future Hunters" is boring, stupid and it can't hold a candle to the rip-off exploitation flicks that were made in Italy around the same period.