Future Zone (1990)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Best movie ever!

The acting in this movie is really good.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

John Tucker (Carradine) is back in this sequel to Future Force (1989). This time around, Tucker is having some marital problems with wife Marion (real-life wife at this time Gail Jensen). Also he's fighting gangsters and corruption - and what does Mickland (Napier) have to do with all this? While Tucker is busy being an old west-style gunslinger in a world gone mad, a mysterious stranger seemingly appears out of nowhere to come back him up. But this "stranger" is none other than Billy Tucker (Prior), John's son who travels back in time to help his dad. Naturally, they don't get along at first...well, you know the drill by this point. Will the father and son Tucker team prove that family wins out in the end? Another question you could ask is, "WHY is there another Tucker?" This movie is really pushing its luck. By that we mean, there was no reason whatsoever for a sequel to Future Zone. If David Prior wanted to put Carradine, Napier and Ted in a movie, fine, so much the better, but it really did not need to be another John Tucker vehicle. I doubt fans were clamoring for that. It's almost wasteful, it could have been a whole new idea. So as it stands, Future Zone is very, very dumb, and with an odd, seemingly too-slow pace to boot. On the bright side, Tucker's proto-Power Glove is back in force, shooting blue lasers and blowing up helicopters, and there are plenty of blow-ups, but the pace, overall stupidity and one other negative aspect sink the movie...That being the horrendous score by John Morgan and William Stromberg. It's old-fashioned, inappropriate, and has loud flutes and oboes blasting in your ears. It sounds like it should be in a Disney or Looney Tunes cartoon. It actually enhances the silliness and flaws in the movie. It's incredibly grating, so much so, it basically ruins the experience. Plus it's obvious that Carradine DOES NOT CARE. Maybe he's acting and that's just John Tucker's character, but wow, he really has a lot of contempt for the very fact that he's even there. It's just very low energy. By comparison, when Michael Madsen doesn't care (which is pretty much all the time from what we've seen), it's somehow charming. And when Burt Reynolds doesn't care (which is pretty much all the time from what we've seen), it's at least funny. But Carradine's lack of interest just saps energy from the whole project. And it's already on life support as it is. Ted Prior and Charles Napier do their best to revive the proceedings, but it's not enough: you check out and boredom ensues - even at an 80 minute running time.While Ted Prior's shirt is surely a sight to behold, as is Carradine's jacket with the hand emblazoned on the back, and Carradine gets a great entrance, it's, sadly, not enough. This is not David Prior at his best and he should have stopped after the first "Future" movie and made a new project here. Future Zone is a disappointment.For more action insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

David Carradine reprises his role as John Tucker, the monosyllabic, robotic glove wearing tough nut (no really!) in this somewhat superior sequel to the previous years Future Force. This time around our hero is joined by his son, played in typical hip form by director David A Prior's brother, and regular headliner, Ted. Oh, did I happen to mention that his son has come back from the future? Um.....anyway, to cut the story short, our father and son team must now take on a drug dealing no-gooder and his legions of lackeys. Yep, this inevitably spells out as lots of shootouts, a fair amount of fisticuffs and a few explosions thrown in for good measure. Best of all though is the glove! Yes, our remote controlled, laser firing little friend is back and as energetic as ever!.......Now where can I get me one of those wonderful things?!

A rare example of a sequel that's better than the original. David Carradine returns as rough'n'tumble bounty hunter John Turner, who this time locks horns with ruthless drug dealing crime boss Hoffman (an effectively sleazy portrayal by Patrick Culliton). Turner is assisted by brash young hotshot Billy (a likable Ted Prior), who ultimately turns out to be Turner's own son from the future who's traveled back to the present to spend some quality time with his father. Writer/director David A. Prior shows a greater degree of flair and competence than in the previous picture; he relates the story at a steady pace and stages the stirring action scenes with a reasonable amount of brio. Moreover, Carradive delivers a much more lively and committed performance as the hard-nosed Turner. The solid acting from a good cast rates as another substantial plus: Gail Jensen as Turner's fed-up shrewish wife Marion, Ron Taft as Hoffman's vicious flunky Dugan, Charles Napier as huffy corrupt police chief Mickland, Renee Cline as sarcastic informant Cindi, and Dave Scott as sniveling toady Monroe. The breezy and engaging chemistry between Prior and Carradine really keeps the movie humming throughout. Voya Mikulic's slick cinematography, the tight 79 minute running time, William T. Stremberg's spirited cornball score, and a decent dab of gratuitous female nudity are all on the money as well. A perfectly enjoyable little low-budget B-action flick.

`Future Zone' is the sequel to `Future Force,' which was a good idea gone totally bad. David A. Prior took a lot of good elements and wasted them in that movie. He had a big name star in David Carradine, and he either didn't utilize this star power or didn't direct the star right, as Carradine just didn't seem to have the heart to be in the movie, looking completely bored. Prior took good music from Steve McClintock and Tim James and put it in all the wrong places and at the wrong decibels. He took good villains (William Zipp and Robert Tessier) and a good plot and squandered them with stilted dialogue and bad pacing. But with this sequel, you wouldn't have known this was the same director. Prior does everything that he did wrong with `Future Force' and corrects it.Here it seems like the events of the first movie have been forgotten except that Carradine is still a hard-nosed bounty hunter, but now he has a wife he neglects, and it isn't the same character he walks off with in the first film. One day, his life is saved by a young hotshot whose shooting skills rival that of Carradine himself, and this youngster (Ted Prior, of all people, doing some of the best acting in his career) beings to hang around with loner Carradine. We know when we first see this character that he is really from the future, and I for one as able to put the pieces together about who he really was before it was revealed, but it was still neat. David Prior's writing was so much better that the ease at which I was predicting events didn't matter because I was enjoying it all so much. The music, though not by the same good musicians as before, was better placed, and the dialogue much better. Best of all was that Carradine did a three-sixty, getting into his part and having fun doing it. While the movie still had some flaws, it was good enough for me, and way better than its predecessor. Zantara's score: 6 out of 10.