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Future War (1997)


Cast:

Daniel Bernhardt is the Runaway, Atool
Robert "Better than Return to Frogtown" D'zar is Cyborg Master
Travis Brooks Stewart is Sister Ann
Kazja is Cyborg
Ray Adash is Captain Polaris


What the box says:

No one is safe in this deadly Sci-Fi tale of a master race of Cyborgs from the future who abduct humans from the past breeding them as slaves. Blood thirsty dinosaurs are trained as trackers, impossible to outrun. But when a human (Daniel Bernhardt) breaks free, a bloody war begins and the Cyborgs are forced to battle against vigilantes, street gangs and drug lords - in a deadly race for the future.


Plot:

Retrogressive namification is used for the little Runaway. I thought his name was Atul. He just keeps refering to himself as "A Tool".

Sleeveless plaid guy, Ann, and Expendable Fred are searching through a dark warehouse. Ann’s pointless narration assails us. 4 days earlier a man changed her life.

We see a few raptors or mean looking little dinosaurs. Our intrepid group keeps on their quest. They spot some dinosaurs and run from them. The raptors are lured out and then die of lead poisoning. The group beats feet and climbs up a ladder except for Expendable Fred who lives up to his name. He becomes an all you can eat buffet for a 65 million year old extinct species.

Suddenly, a space ship flies as the credits roll.


At least, it isn't the Battlestar Galactica ship like in Space Mutiny.
Hearing random noises and rioting, someone jumps in the escape pod. Highly advanced escape pods have computers that would make a Commodore 64 seem high tech.

On a beach, a dirty hippie sees something fly and crash into the ocean.

The screen crawl is a series of much entertainment. From the future, a group of cyborgs made abductions from Earth’s past. Dinosaurs were used as trackers. Humans were bred as slaves. As a vaguely Terminator 2 theme plays, we learn that a runaway slave escapes to what is considered Heaven…Earth.

4 days ago, Atool crawls from the sea. Random computer vision ensues. Cyborg Bob kills the dirty hippie. He has a dinosaur tracker on a leash. Atool is beating feet.

In the city, Atool bumps into a drunken bum who screams bloody murder. Apparently, Atool screams bloody murder because of it. He runs off before the dinosaur eats the drunken bum.

Atool struggles with another tracker dinosaur.


I'm not the Carnosaur!!!
Breaking its neck, the raptor promptly explodes leaving no carcass.

Cyborg Bob continues searching for Atool. More computer vision ensues. Our Jean Claude Van-Damme impersonator, Atool, is trying to evade the cyborg master by hiding behind a number of cardboard boxes.

This has to be the definitive kickboxing fight set around cardboard boxes in the history of movies. Cyborg Bob is wielding a katana or a piece of rebar. Leaping Atool ensues before retreating action. Cyborg Bob slowly searches. Atool will hit him a few times then run off. A deliberate cat and mouse chase ensues through a cardboard maze.


Maniac Cop 4 doesn't sound that bad after this.
A third or fourth derivative b-movie fight ensues. This is a more drawn out fight than Roddy Piper and David Keith in They Live.

A slow motion box toss incapacitates Cyborg Bob long enough for Atool to escape. He is searching through another warehouse. Another carnosaur is tracking him. More infrared vision ensues. He promptly kung fues the offending beast.

Atool runs into the street and is run over by Sister Ann. She takes him to a halfway house.

The cops find the dead bum. The theory is some sort of wild animal killed him. They’re unsure what the dino-shaped scorch pattern is.

At the halfway house, Fred and Oscar talk with Sister Ann. Ann is having doubts about the call of the nun.

Nurse lady is tending to Atool’s wounds. She finds the slave dog collar.

Fred reveals Ann’s back story. She had just been in jail for a month, running from her pimp, and strung out on drugs. Even worse, she sold some drugs to a friend that overdosed. This girl has a few guilt issues.

The next day, Atool is listening to the radio. Fred, Oscar, and Ann watch Atool devour his breakfast. He won’t talk. After they leave, Ann is going to get him to open up. A former prostitute trying to get a guy to open up is too easy of a joke like the prostitute.

She tries talking with him. We get some truly painful attempts to act mute by Atool who is pointing up. She can’t even guess he’s from space. He can’t write or isn’t able to point where he’s from on a map.

Later, Ann is about to leave. Atool is mangling the English language into shapes that should exist in 3 dimensions. He tries explaining he’s from space. A dinosaur is outside and breaks through the window.


I'm not a velaciraptor either!!
Atool tries to protect Ann and Max, Oscar’s son. Fred rushes in and unloads both barrels of a single barrel shotgun. Atool and Ann run off.

Atool explains how his vocal chords needed time to adjust to Earth and the language. He comes from space, but ancestors came from Earth. The master cyborgs didn’t want to work. If that isn’t crazy enough, Atool also knows the Bible. Earth is his heaven.

Ann assaults us with more narration. She was going to be a nun but has doubts. She is ashamed of her past and turned to the church. Guilty for a friend’s overdose, she can’t accept it. The head nun has her take a weekend off to watch for any signs.

Atool explains that the tracker will return to where it first found him. Isn’t that a pretty bad tracker? Ann is going back for her friends. Atoll will go with her. Apparently, Ann is one of those world weary nuns without any faith. Atool talks about how he wants to be the kind of man that would lay his life down for his fellow man. Is that foreshadowing?

Forrest Ackerman is taking a stroll before being devoured by the raptor.

The cops believe an animal is behind the killings.

Atool and Ann discuss spirituality in outer space.

A large force perspective dinosaur eats a couple of soccer playing kids.

The cops are starting to get calls about the monsters.

As Ann and Atoll are walking down the street, a police car stops in front of them and arrests them off screen.

At another warehouse, a reporter with a cereal box video camera is reporting about some workers trapped inside.

Cops send he SWAT team in to rescue the workers. An Aliens-ripoff ensues. The lone SWAT guy finds a bloodstain.

The police captain is taking Atool and Ann inside the warehouse. Haven’t we had enough warehouse searches? Our search party finds a few parts of the Lone SWAT guy and the blood splattered room of the workers. They hear gunshots. The cops can’t shoot in the room for fear of hitting the other cops on the other side of the room. Atool stabs and Kung Fues the raptor. Everyone sees the dinosaur explode and evaporate.

Captain Polaris learns of more monster sightings across the city. Atool admits the raptors are after him. The captain has him arrested. This is a parallel universe where you can be arrested without learning the charges.

Ann is free to go. She has Fred set up a meeting with a street gang.

A forlorn Atool is in jail. He goes through a shirtless kata. As the Terminator 2 theme plays, he has flashbacks to fighting the trackers including to the infrared perspective of the dinosaurs.

Ann meets with the street gang. The gang’s leader is the brother of Ann’s friend that overdosed. She needs help against the dinosaurs.

Dr. Tanaka thinks that Atool is nuttier than anyone who thought Bonfire of the Vanities was a good movie. Captain Polaris knows the dinosaurs exist. So if part of the story is true, couldn’t more of it be? Federal agents storm in the office and force Polaris off the case because of national security. The agents who wear their sunglasses at night begin questioning him. Dr. Tanaka performs a little surgery to remove Atool’s subcutaneous transmitter.

Cyborg Bob approaches the police station.

The transmitter is being studied in the lab. Cyborg Bob rushes in and the killing spree ensues.

The federal agents will take Atool to Langley. They get distracted from the attack of the police station. Robert Z’Dar did this in Maniac Cop. However, when it is so low budget to make the police station attack in Galaxis seem like Lord of the Rings, your movie is in trouble.

Atool is collared by Cyborg Bob when a giant raptor arrives. A forced perspective fight between the two ensues.

Ann is still talking to the gang when Atool arrives. They start to search where the trackers are hidden. Atool finds some tracks and are quickly chased by the carnivorous monsters.

Later, they meet. How do they kill the dinosaurs without heavy firepower? Ann will take care of it. A drug dealer buddy of her gives her heroin and a wad of cash.

Ann has the guns. Atool is shown how the guns work.

The street army heads back for the culvert into the dark tunnel where the searching begins. They rig a net from the ceiling.

Ann, Fred, and Atool have gotten to where they started the movie at.

Our heroes trod on further. Hearing the dinosaurs, they back off without alerting their foes. The plan is to draw the raptors from their lair. Ann and Atool will draw them out. They yell and are chased by the raptors.

The gang open fires and perforates one thunder lizard.

Climbing up the ladder, Fred falls off it and is carnosaur snack pack.

Another tracker gets a harpoon shot into its head.

Another tracker pursues Atool and Ann. One guy kamikazes. The electrified net takes care of another tracker.

They run into Cyborg Bob. It is Atool versus Cyborg Bob for the fourth time. How can they fight without any boxes? Kickboxing ensues as the timer on the dynamite continues to count down.

Hearing another dinosaur, the gang, Ann, and Atool make out of the tunnel like a Meatloaf title album.

The explosion takes out the last dinosaur.

More narration ensues, Ann is about to receive her final vows as Atool and Max watch. She keeps looking at Atool. As she is about to give her final vow, Cyborg Bob falls through the ceiling. Atool and Cyborg Bob will fight perhaps for the final time. Atool loses his shirt and resumes kickboxing.

Ann tosses to Atool the slave collar. Atool gets the collar around Cyborg Bob’s neck. It explodes setting the Cyborg on fire.

Ann tends to the wounded Atool.

Later, a phone rings. Apparently, Atool is working at a crisis center?


What I say:

I have an obsession with the IMDB bottom 100 and moreso with the Bottom 10. It's number 4 with a bullet at least at the time of writing. I'm a bit on the slow side of reviewing. By the time, I get a movie done on the Bottom 10. It isn't on it anymore. I'm not fond of how people use it to slam some movies as bad. Some movies deserve it. However has House of the Dead or You Got Served stood the test of time for badness like Plan 9 from Outer Space or Manos: the Hands of Fate? Normally, the Bottom 10 has a good percentage of movies from MST3K. Future War is one of them. It is also probably one of the more popular of the Sci-Fi channel episodes. I'll keep from watching the misted version of the movie until after finishing the review. It'll be nice to see what got cut out of the movie.

The forced perspectives on the dinosaurs is quite a sight. I know the raptors were shown the size of chickens, small dogs, man-sized, and even 15 foot tall monsters. The drunken bum was attacked first by what looked like a chicken sized dinosaur that suddenly was man-sized. We can not expect Jurassic Park like effects even with the raptors used in this movie came from Corman's own ripoff .

Some movies have been reviewed by many of the B-movie sites. While I try not to review some of the more widely known movies like Evil Dead 2, I'm afraid of not being able to say something unique. Are there any severed killer hand jokes left? Besides, movies are not on other B-movie sites allow my reviews to be craptacular without anyone realizinghow sucktastic they really are. Everyone has a alternate definition of B-movies. If your future review schedule looks like you're doing the same thing as another site, why would anyone bother with your site? None of my works can compare with the efforts of say Agony Booth. My definition of a B-movie has some similarities with Albert's though I don't revel in some truly agonizing movies he does. I don't envision a Myra Breckinridge review on my site.

The name isn't Atul.. He was saying "a tool". I didn't catch that at first. However, Atool sounds like a good name. Why would I want to search and replace Atool with Runaway Slave? Are all slaves not even given any designations to identify them from the other slaves? At least, the Borg had desinations. Seven of Nine. Sorry, visions of a cat suit clad Jeri Ryan are dancing in my head.

They should have cut the number of Atool and Cyborg Bob fights. The first one was hilarious. Have cardboard boxes ever improved a fight as much as that? The attack on the police station really didn't need a fight between them. I'm not sure why the fight in the tunnels was needed if Cyborg Bob was going to attack Atool during Ann's induction. The fights are all the same with Daniel Bernhardt's kickboxing.

Daniel Bernhardt is going to be given the benefit of the doubt. What martial artist would want to do a Jean Claude Van-Damme impression complete with grimaces? It is too easy to do Jean Claude Van-Damme jokes when Bernhardt does quite an uncanny impression of the Muscles from Brussels. I'm sure he was told to act like that. A martial artist in his first starring role isn't going to have much say in his role or probably staging the fights. He did stunt work in the Matrix Reloaded. Any guy who was kung fuing Keanu's stunt double, I will salute.

Robert D'Zar isn't quite as well known a B-movie actor as say Brion James, Tim Thomerson, or Bruce Campbell. He is almost automatically recognizable with his chin and face. With an almost Rondo Hatton like face, he is easy to cast as a goon for a heavy. You could almost picture him like Richard "Jaws" Kiel or Oddjob in James Bond movie. It is hard to imagine what Robert D'Zar thought of a movie ripping off a Maniac Cop rampage in a police station. In fact, every rampage in a police station comes across as rip-off of Arnold's attacking the police station in the Terminator. I do have to think the station attack seems more like the one in Galaxis. Poor Robert D'Zar had absolutely no lines in this movie. He just roamed around dressed in a silly cyborg costume and was kickboxed by Atool.

Travis Stewart Brook is Sister Ann. She was a runaway, prostitute, drug dealer, and junkie. Why didn't they mention she used to beat kittens? This is a smoking, swearing, gun-toting (like the nun in FreeJack), dope-selling soon-to-be nun. Who knew potential nuns wore jeans with holes in them and have a love of plaid? I've heard of trying to bring the real life into spirituality. But, that is a little much. She only had one other acting credit, one of the numerous "Bikini" movies from the mid 90s.

A temporally displaced guy battling dinosaurs sounds a lot like the video game shooter Turok Dinosaur Hunter. For that matter, I'm sure the Turok video game was released before this movie ever came out. However, Turok had no cyborg overlords to battle. Future War seems to have a true kitchen sink script with practically everything possible included regardless of it would have helped the story or not.

According to imdb user comments, Future War was intended to be Carnosaur 3 movie at first. However, the second one lost so much money to kill the deal. The director did effects on the Carnosaur movies. Apparently, the director's cut had a lot of more in it. Editing it down took a lot out of the movie. Narration was left while the action scenes were cut. There are several scenes that had to be cut out of the movie. You can spot a number of missing things from the DVD. One scene has Ann and Atul walking along the street when a police car pulls in front of them. The next shot has them in the back of the police car. Apparently, for some reason, they are arrested.

With insane as this movie is, I can't hate it. The biggest sin a movie can commit is to be boring. This has to be one of the funniest movies I've seen in quite a while. What is better than unintentional humor? The day for night shots get almost as bad as to confuse Ed Wood. Unless, people walk through the entire night until dawn. They don't really use the filters to make it that dark. A lot of the night shots are around dusk even if the time is implied to be in the middle of the night.

All federal agents wear suits and dark glasses even at night (like Corey Hart). Sorry, I am morally obligated to throw out a pointless 80s song reference every few reviews. They announce their presence as federal agents and claim "national security" gives them the right to do whatever they want to do. Why does a Martin Lawrence movie allow them to seize prisoners? Let me see how much I remember about the CIA from Tom Clancy novels and a term paper I wrote about it in an American Government class in college. Langley is the headquarters of the C.I.A. The CIA's charter concerns gather intelligence in other countries. A larger budget might have implied the CIA wanted to get their hands on any offworld bred human. We're given federal agents that make Reggie Bannister look like David Duchovny's Fox Mulder.

A low budget movie doesn't have a lot of money to give a feel of authenticity to a lot of things. They couldn't shell out enough money to have a half decent police station. The actors in uniforms were in blue. However, they made security guard uniforms look like dress blue uniforms. Even more, the dispatcher wore the ballcap with the word "Police" emblazened on it. It the movie was made in the mid 80s, I'd think the guy was Sting fan.

This is one of the harder movies to decide what picturess to use. It isn't that there weren't any pictures. It was there were too many to choose. The spaceship, the raptors, Robert Z'Dar as the cyborg. the epic cardboard box fight, and far more that that. Practically anything besides when the characters are talking could be a good picture.

I was planning to use this review for the April Roundtable, Fecal Film Festival, hopefully coming next week to my site. After watching it, I have a confession to make. Future War wasn't that bad. Yes, it is a stupid movie with killer dinosaurs, implied time travel, cyborg overlords. The first 40 mintues or so are pretty funny unintentionally, of course. It has stolen from Jurassic Park or Carnosaur, Back to the Future, Terminator. OK, they stole from Millennium, Galaxis, Maniac Cop, and Kickboxer, too. That is just what pops off the top of my head. Most of it is silly enough not to be truly agonizing. Maybe, I was watching it in too good of a mood. Well no matter, next week's is a truly wretched piece of cinema.

The IMDB has voted this to be one of the worst movies. For common viewers, I can understand why they would think it is bad. This movie is one of the most technically inept movies from the the mid to late 90s. The acting is awful. My definition of a bad movie is if it is boring. I can endure invisible monsters, terrible dubbing, dinner theater actors, and ridiculous plots. However, a boring movie is something I cannot stand. In fact, I think there is a good chance that Future War will be considered one of true bad movies of its time after it has aged like a fine cheese.

Point to ponder:

Ever see a street gang concerned about joining a nun and alien kickboxer in destroying dinosaurs?



3 NINJAS

Quotable Dialogue

"Maybe, he was into some kind of bondage thing."
"How does an alien bred human know quotes from the Bible."
"Hey, Joey, Captain wants to know if you spotted the bear yet."
"Monsters in the hood."
"I have a job, too. I'm a tool."


Morals of the Story

Revereberated voices are creepy.
Dinosaurs see in infrared.
Spaceships have plenty of coloreed lighting.
If someone screams, you must scream, too.
Cyborgs are pasty and have a zombie like appearance.
Boxes make "whooooshing" noises when thrown.
Dinosaurs are very spontaneously combustable.
Scrambled eggs are finger food.