FUTURE WAR (1997)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

Well, FUTURE WAR scored some sort of victory over me. Usually, I can discern some basic meaning of even the most jumbled junk-movie. But I've tried to watch this film three times-- the MST3K version, of course (the film by itself might break me) -- and I can't figure out what the filmmakers were trying to accomplish, even on the level of imitating other, better films.

All I can make of this super-cheap film is that some humanoid alien called The Runaway (Daniel Bernhardt) arrives on Earth, pursued by cyborg soldiers who bring with them some mini-dinosaurs they use as trackers (that never look like anything but badly manipulated puppets). Though one might think the cyborgs would be the main menace, they don't play a big part in the incoherent story until the end, when the kickboxing fugitive fights some sort of cyborg assassin (Robert Z'dar). Most of the film consists of rambling conversations between Runaway and various Earth-people, mainly a gal-pal named Sister Ann (Travis Brooks Stewart). The sister is a nun of some sort, but she became a drug addict and sold her body. She never talks or acts like any kind of nun, except that she never becomes a romantic interest to the hero. I considered the possibility that Runaway might be a sort of secular savior to Sister Ann, but the script isn't even inventive to go there. 

Bernhardt was a pretty decent low-rent martial hero in a few nineties movies and in the one-season MORTAL KOMBAT TV show. However, he's out of his element in a zero-budget flick, and so his fights prove lethargic and he fails to put across even basic heroism. After the nineties the actor became pretty a much a stunt-guy. Yet I guess no one can blame FUTURE WAR for that, since I can't believe anyone ever watched it, even on video, until MST3K revived it for purposes of mockery. The director never did anything else of note. The two writers garnered a few more credits but the only thing I recognized was a silly comedy called BIKINI HOTEL, and that timewaster was like gold next to this turd.