Mjeteconer
Just perfect...
SoftInloveRox
Horrible, fascist and poorly acted
Cassandra
Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
Cristal
The movie really just wants to entertain people.
qmtv
Real rating is a B or C, or about 6 or 7 stars. 10 given to compensate for the slow viewers.I've seen this movie twice now. First time May, 2016 and at that time I thought it was slow and not much going on and the rating was a C or D. I just rewatched it last week and I must say given the budget it was much better that I originally thought.This movie basically takes Orwell's 1984 and cuts to the chase. The torture of the prisoner, the wardens addiction to torment the prisoner. The copy that I watched was from a 50 movies set and was not in the best shape but watchable. From what I gathered the Prisoner was a Corporate type that was implicated for not helping the new regime that just took over power. While he was imprisoned, and tortured, there must have been a world war and all that the prisoner knew, his wife and life was all gone. By the time he tried to escape he realized that even if he did get out there was nothing left. So, the prisoner and torture is all from 1984 but the ending is something else.The main actor did a fine job, some of the other actors were good too. The guard looked the part but his acting was garbage. The cinematography was very good. Music was good. Editing could have been a little tighter. The robots were interesting. There's a lot going on here. This is a low budget and I believe TV production. Imagine if they had some cash behind it. The story is there. And isn't that what most of us want, The story! One more thing. I recently watched 1984, twice, the 1984 version. What a pile of crap. I then watched the 1956 version. Much better. Then the Peter Cushing 1954 British TV version, the best 1984! I've also seen the US TV 1953 version, decent. I'd rather watch 984: Prisoner of the Future than the 1984 version of 1984.Real rating is a B/C, or 6 or 7 stars. 10 given for compensation for the slow viewers looking for the next Star Wars.
Rainey Dawn
This movie (TV show pilot) is BORING! It started out interesting and then turned into one long borefest! I can see why the idea for the TV series was axed. The film makes no sense whatsoever... they should have reveled why in the heck they were really prisoners beside this "enemy of Dr. what's his name" stuff. I mean the potential was there for a good film and maybe an okay TV series but this pilot pretty much sucks.I felt nothing for any of the characters. The one's that were captured and imprisoned for no real reason - I didn't feel bad for at all! They were very flat characters that I didn't care if the "bad guys" killed or let go. I really didn't care! That's one of the biggest problems with this film - flat characters in suits and ties that you can't sympathies with at all. It's like "who cares if they are imprisoned, they probably deserved it anyway but I really don't know because they aren't letting us know really anything solid about them".1/10
brando647
984: PRISONER OF THE FUTURE was the pilot for a Canadian television that never went to series but was instead released as a TV movie in 1982. Having watched it twice now, I can understand why it was never picked up but I also want to be clear that I respect what they were trying to do. Buried somewhere in the poor direction, poor editing, and poor script is a story with the potential to have made for an interesting show. With a budget and proper filmmakers behind the scenes, this could have been a cool dystopian science fiction drama. Instead it's a bit of a mess with the occasional flicker of interesting material. It drops you right in the middle of the story from the very beginning. When we first meet our protagonist Tom Weston (Stephen Markle), he's locked in a nondescript prison cell. He's been assigned a prisoner number (984, obviously) and his only socialization from comes prisoner #30 in the cell next door. It's obviously sometime in the future because the guards are some sort of robot on wheels with glowing red laser eyes (also, it's stated plainly in the title) but otherwise there's little to see because the entire film looks as if it was shot in an abandoned warehouse. There's nothing but brick walls and concrete floors, and I'm pretty sure the prisoner intake flashback scene was shot on the loading dock. I found myself distracted by this obvious fact but, to be fair, I'd have been willing to forgive the low budget location restrictions if the movie had been executed better.Weston is some sort of political prisoner, I think. The events leading to his incarceration are revealed in flashbacks over the course of the movie and exposition comes from Weston's interactions with the giddily psychotic warden (Don Francks). Here lies my biggest problem with PRISONER OF THE FUTURE; thanks to the poor editing, direction, and script (and the less than stellar audio transfer on my DVD copy), I was left completely baffled at the constant nonsensical backstory information. I believe he's a political prisoner who has been imprisoned for crimes committed against something called the Movement. I thought the Movement was a resistance faction but apparently they might actually be the ones in charge. The warden seems determined to squeeze a confession from Weston but Weston holds strong that he has no idea what's going on. He seems 100% convinced that he's been wrongly accused but the warden hits him with evidence that Weston's friends and associates (and mistress?) were all co-conspirators. But then I got the impression from some of the flashback sequences that Weston was actually in trouble for refusing to commit atrocities in the name of the Movement. So was he imprisoned because he refused to play ball with the baddies? At this point, I'm still unclear. Director Tibor Takács and screenwriters Peter Chapman and Stephen Zoller seem to have forgotten that, for the audience to care about our hero, we really should know and understand what he's going through. Since I have no concept of where he stands in all this, I have a hard time sympathizing. Is he a criminal? Or a victim?PRISONER OF THE FUTURE is a pretty rough watch but I'll give it credit for trying. Unlike a lot of the Z-grade movies I've made myself suffer, at least Takács and cinematographer Alar Kivilo try to get creative in how they shot it. Rarely is the camera locked down while we're forced to watch the same static frame while characters rattle off dialogue. The camera does its part in trying to tell the story and for that it gets some respect. PRISONER OF THE FUTURE may be a lame TV movie but it's giving it an effort. Sadly the cinematography is one of the few positive notes I've got on the movie. But not the only one. I still love the robot guards and my interest piqued whenever they were on screen. There was an especially cool bit in the finale where they're pursuing Weston and flailing at him with karate-chopping action figure skills. The whole use of torture and brainwashing to break the prisoners was pretty cool (we see the effects of it on prisoner #1170, who goes from smarmy businessman to sniveling wimp over the course of his stay) and we get an interesting reveal at the end about Weston's imprisonment that I would've like to delve into further. I'm guessing that would've been the ongoing thread if this ever went on to become a full-fledged series. Really, that's the most frustrating part of this movie. It doesn't get truly interesting until the very last few minutes but by then it's too late and the credits are rolling. I can't really imagine where 984: PRISONER OF THE FUTURE could've gone with a full series run and I'm left to wonder if it was doomed from the start, but using this confusing mess of a movie pilot probably wasn't starting them off on the right foot anyway.
wildcarddaemons
this made for t.v. or pilot episode was well made and enjoyable.Stephen Markle I was impressed he was solid and enjoyable. it follows the rules of show don't tell as well it reminds me of some other sci-fi shocker films I've seen. the reason i rate this so high is the acting is fantastic one or two spots of hammy but other then that,the sound of the film (at least My copy) was very quiet at times.The visual slightly in sepia around the left side of the screen. But with patience and an open mind you can see the enjoyment in a lot of films if you like decent writing and decent acting with a well proposed end i hope you enjoy as i have.