User reviews

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)

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."

It's about an arrogant cop played by "David Carridine" whom protects a female reporter who knows too much. For that a ransom death sentence (or a bounty) has been put out on her life. It's the typical shoot 'em up and save the girl type of films.

The only way to watch this lame film, is to watch the Rifftrax version. The guys start out low with "A closet full of Jokes" and "How did they rope him - David Carradine - into this" and stay down there. Just a hysterical jaunt through a terrible movie.

This is by the far the worst movie I have ever seen. It should be classified under comedy, because everything about it is a joke. Through the whole movie, we are supposed to believe that fat david carradine is the best cop of the future....give me a break. The whole time he's moving in slow motion and talks like John Wayne. He has some stupid electric glove that looks like that old nintendo glove. At one point he used a remote control to operate it that only had one big red button. Everytime he pushed that same big red button the glove would do something else like open the car door, punch, send out waves of energy and even give the old thumbs up. WOW!!!!

Besides the horrible acting, the cinematography was absolute garbage. Whoever edited this movie should never work in film again. Some of the scenes were just added in to take up time. I remember one scene where the chief of police was in his office just drinking a can of soda. THEY SHOWED HIM DRINKING THAT SODA FOR LIKE FIVE MINUTES!!! The car chases looked like they were looped to show the same scene over and over. Every once in a while they would throw in random cuts of David Carradine just walking around or aimlessly driving around town.

I don't have to tell you how ridiculous the story was. The whole time I was watching the movie me and my friend were laughing hysterically at how ridiculous everything in this movie was. I swear you could have given me ten bucks and a video camera and i could have made a better movie in my backyard.

I recommend every film teacher show this movie to their students to demonstrate to them how NOT to make a movie.

The only pleasant aspect of this movie is the beautiful Anna Rapagna. The only thing futuristic about this movie is that we are watching it in their future. Terrible soundtrack, terrible movie.

This is the kind of movie that is best watched with friends who are recovering from hangovers. That is how i was introduced to it, and it definitely helped my condition. This film is completely and totally hilarious. I love it. From the extremely cheesy dialogue to the sleazy porno looking police chief to the magical robot glove, this movie rules. In fact, I'm hungover right now. In fact, I'm going to watch it again right now. Yes.

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

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.

"Come on Tucker get up I want some more of your ass!"

Warning: Look out for the airborn knuckle-sandwich an hour and eight minutes in!

1989's Future Force is highly typical of the Derrick that David Carradine churned out throughout his career, in fact it's a textbook example of exactly what level of film-making one can expect to see when the name David Carradine shows up; another good/typical example of his work would Dune Warriors, which was made the year after Future Force.

Carradine's a cop of sort's "the top-gun in his precinct", but more accurately he's a bounty hunter, he works for C.O.P.S. (civilian operated police systems) it's supposedly "the future", but you'd NEVER guess it by any of the visuals this movie has to offer. Filmed in and around L.A. and in "the future" nearly everyone is clad in denim from head to toe and they use the standard fire-arm's of today, why "Tucker" (that's Carradine's character) even uses an antique pistol, a type that dates back to the 1800's - again their supposedly depicting "the future" here. Never have I seen a lamer or lazier or less imaginative attempt to depict the future then what we see in this movie, again, that's FUTURE Force were talking about here. However there is one instance where they actually tried to convince the audience that what they were seeing was really "the future", it's their one attempt at hi-tech. Tucker has this special one-of-a-kind glove (that he keeps in the back of his Jeep Cherokee, yep those are his "futuristic" wheels, there are several old-beater station wagons used as well, I'm not kidding) that can do "all kinds of things", such as shoot laser beams, give him super-human strength and by use of a remote-control it can fly through the air and unleash a clench-fisted air-born assault against Tucker's enemies. This glove Tucker has pretty much looks like a glorified version of a Nintendo Power-Glove (which was brand-new on the market at the time)- yes, the cheese-factor of this lame action flick is pretty high times.

Throughout the movie the action is completely standard-fare, except for the chase scenes which are well below average. Other than Carradine the only other actor of note (that anyone's familiar with) to be seen in Future Force is the distinctive character actor, the late Robert Tessier (Rob was unfortunately cut-down by cancer the following year), other than those two the cast is filled out with no-name/inter-changeable actor's. To his credit the guy who plays the lead-villain is pretty good, whoever he is. It's surprising that Carradine, a martial arts expert, would look and move the way he does in this movie, having a bit of a gut and he exerts the minimum amount of energy and effort throughout the movie - in other words, a very lazy and half-assed performance. You can plainly tell he's not interested in the movie and is merely there to pick up a check, which if you watch his movies, usually seems to be Carradine's MO (with maybe a few exceptions, Lone Wold McQuade is pretty good). If you can believe it they actually felt the need to make a sequel the very next year, yes they were highly motivated (Carradine returns, just for another paycheck) to churn out yet another generic, sub-par, quickly forgotten low-budget action film - in the form of 1990's "Future Zone", which is really no better or worse than Future Force.

Ultimately this movie, Future Force, is a profoundly unremarkable and easily forgotten movie that has very little to offer, it is lazy, amateurish and uninspired - though I have seen worse.

Note: I think you'll find the location photography to be just INSPIRED throughout, the crew did a real bang-up job capturing L.A. in all it's splendor. I wonder if thee iconic "Happy Burger" restaurant (there's this -ridiculous- shot an hour or so into the movie, where Happy Burger's garish outer facade fills nearly the entire shot!!) is still up is still up and going - if so I'd like to try one!

Future Force would make a perfect double-feature with R.O.T.O.R. What would be the sale's pitch? Maybe, "Do you like Crappy Movies? Well hey, you're in luck - here's two more!"

Set in dystopian future which looks too much like today, some guy with a cyborg arm is framed for something and...... I don't know. I didn't pay attention. For what it's worth, at least they made a movie in which I could never do. Anyways this is a low budget action/sci fi movie which is rather bland and silly. The idea is good and the action is neat but slow pacing and a lousy attempt at trying to make the dystopian future look convincing are its failures. Recommended to low grade $#!+ lovers at best.

I'm not saying the guy who made this film was a white supremacist but... the clan meetings he went to definitely didn't center around feet and ninja turtles.

My vote is a perfect 10...for perfectly awful. This video was for sale and I gobbled it up because I thought that it was FutureZone, the sequel to this film. I saw FutureZone years ago and laughed to joyous content. And although Kill Bill v2 was just a hilarious, at least the David Carradine scenes, this film doesn't make me run to the bomb shelter (its important to note that Tarintino's v2 work had everything, including a kitchen sink full of puke, I left the theater thinking Armegeddon could begin at any second...for there was no turd left unturned in that magnum opus). Anyway, this film was everything I wanted and more, the robot laser cannon is really the icing on the pudding.

A bevy of curiously pot bellied actors (including an especially out of shape David Carradine) feature in this mildly enjoyable romp from the ever prolific, David A Prior. Well, first things first - it has to be said that this is cheap with a capital 'C' - and by gum, it shows! Nonetheless, as with most of Mr Priors other offerings, the fun factor here makes up for the budgetary shortcomings as we are treated to a plethora of shoot outs, fights and scenes featuring topless, gyrating dancers.....um.....OK. As other reviewers have quite rightly noted, the doubtless highlight in this though involves Carradine's robotic glove which is a pretty nifty bit of kit, for not only can it punch through solid doors and fire laser beams(!) but it is also fully, independently operational via a remote control(!) (a control which bears an uncanny similarity to one of those used to open an electronic garage door in fact.....) Suffice to say that you can not really say to have lived until you have witnessed the bloody thing flying through the air and attacking someone!

Yes indeed, this is simple, daft fun and will go down a joyous treat with friends over and a large amount of alcohol.

It's difficult to give this film a very good rating, although I do recommend you see it, if you like David Carradine.

Since his untimely death, I've tried to collect and watch all of his films that are still available.

I think MST3000 would have had fun with this one, if they censored out the nudity and perhaps some of the profanity.

Two used copies I ordered on line were defective, and tonight I received my third (new) copy, and am enjoying it as I type this review.

I'm awaiting a DVD of "Sundown, the Vampire in Retreat", and I also enjoy rewatching "Q, The Winged Serpent". Carradine and Michael Moriarty are excellent together.