Future War (1997)

Future War: 1 out of 10: Future war brings with it many questions starting with who are those people on the DVD cover? They do not appear anywhere in the film. I have seen misleading DVD covers before (Cough... Lionsgate... Cough) but this wins some sort of award.The plot is your usual fare. Jean-Claude Van Damme look alike Daniel Bernhardt is a slave in outer space. He escapes to Earth and is tracked by Tyrannosaurus Rex puppets shot in forced perspective. He meets up with a former drug addicted prostitute who is going through novitiate (Catholic Nun Training) yet she still has street cred and a scrapbook of her hooker days.So Slave boy and the Novice Nun join up with local 12 steppers and gangbangers to fight the T-rex puppets and kickboxing against Robert Z'Dar’s chin. The fight scenes consist of either people kicking empty boxes at each other or Dinosaur puppets in hallways with empty boxes. In fact, the entire film is filled with empty boxes like a Solid Snake wet dream or a UPS training film.Even with a budget in the thousands, I am not sure the script is filmable. The acting, with the notable exception of Travis Brooks Stewart (The nun unbelievably) is amateur at best. There is no nudity, limited gore, and the special effects consist of Dinosaur puppets.The Mystery Science Theater version of this film gets 8 out of 10. Decent riffing and skits though even Mike and the bots seem overwhelmed by the sheer incompetence on the screen

I've just about reached my limit. I've watched more than my share of bad movies in the past few months. Sure, as is the case with Future War, I've watched many of these movies courtesy of and with the assistance of Mystery Science Theater 3000 - but I've watched them just the same. Future War may be the last for a while. It's so bad I'm ready to swear off bad movies all together.The plot is a completely ridiculous mish-mash of incomprehensible ideas that never made a lick of sense to me. Something about a traveler from the future with cyborgs and their dinosaur "trackers" hot on his heels. The only person he's got to turn to for help is a former druggy/prostitute turned nun facing a crisis of faith. Like I said, none of it makes sense.I've said this so many times that I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but Future War is bad in every way a movie can be bad. The acting is beyond pitiful. Neither of the movies' two leads, Daniel Bernhardt or Travis Brooke Stewart, seem capable of acting their way onto a community theater stage, let alone a sound-stage. Most surprising to me is that Bernhardt went on to have a fairly successful career, because in Future War, he comes across as nothing more than a Jean-Claude Van Damme wannabe without any of Van Damme's talent. (Did I just insinuate that Van Damme has talent?) Beyond the acting, the special effects are of particular note. The dinosaurs are about the most Gawd awful things I've seen in a movie. I could film something about as realistic with the plastic dinosaurs my son has in his room. Wait a minute - I think that might be what they used! Finally (and believe me, I could go on forever), the editing in Future War is atrocious. Some scenes are edited so poorly that it's all but impossible to follow the action.Overall, Future War is about as bad as a movie can get. I can't really come up with an inspired description, so I'll end this by saying, "It sux!"

I have wanted to hunt this down since I saw it on the Bottom 100 a few years ago. I finally found it and could not refuse the temptation. I paid the price for my curiosity. This is one of the worst films I've ever seen in my life.Where to begin? Well for starters, for a film that has the word "Future" in its title, it sure did have a lot of dinosaurs running around. The 'dinosaurs' were little more than detailed hand puppets, made to look like they were doing battle with the human characters using painful forced perspective shots.About 20% of the budget must have been spent on cardboard boxes. The entire first fight scene has our hero battling a cyborg (How do we know it's a cyborg? Because of the white makeup that appears on his face most of the time) amongst rows and rows of empty cardboard boxes. They even use the 'empty' boxes as weapons, lobbing them at each other and getting buried under pounds of EMPTY cardboard boxes (Did I mention they're empty?). I also have to mention the cardboard box that didn't make the casting call for the fight sequence, but did serve as a dandy TV camera for the zealous redhead reporter and his cameraman later on.The only name I recognized in this film was Robert Z'Dar. Let me spell out his role for anyone who is tempted to see this entry in his career. He has no lines at all. He's only in a few scenes, one of them a poor "Terminator" rip-off wherein he takes out a police station, the others being the two fight scenes he has with the hero. And he is sporting a really big (fake) mustache, the sole purpose of which is to make him resemble his fight double – who is none other than the cyborg from the aforementioned cardboard box fight.Above all, this movie is cheap. I don't mean B-movie low budget, I mean cheap. I rented it for 50 cents and feel ripped off. I only wish I had seen the MST3K version of "Future War" instead of the real thing.

This is certainly one of them.This concoction's story is based on man's future as slaves to an alien race or something. Earth is an escape, known as heaven, according to the movie. The story takes place on Earth, and has kick boxing, cyborgs, gangs from the "hood", a bunch of fat people, and oh yeah, dinosaur monster things.The runaway, the main protagonist, claims to be a tool. Repeatadly, he states "I am a tool". Yes, he certainly is. He's being chased by the cyborgs and dinosaur things for some reason. This is something the movie revolves around.This movie is really terrible. The script is horrible. The camera work is crap. It's not interesting. The opening credits last way too long. There's no duologue or action for what seems to be the 1st 15 minutes. Hell, I'm not even sure what I just watched to be real honest with you. It's like a plate of spaghetti, but on TV.There are a couple qualities that are OK. The kick boxing is OK actually. I don't know who (the actors name here) is, but he's probably really into kick boxing or martial arts. Also the dinosaur things aren't done too bad. Don't get me wrong, it's obvious what they are, but I've seen just as bad or worse with other puppets. I don't get the size shifting thing, that's really just bad but still the puppets aren't bad.I would recommend not watching this movie. Surprisingly it's from 1997, but looks like it was made in the 70s. Perhaps it was made in the 70s or 80s, and just not released until 1997. It's a huge pile, you've been warned.1/10