Movie Review: 984 - Prisoner of the Future

It has been a few movies since I hit the minor peak of the challenge with Hands of Steel a few days ago. Since then it has been a steady descent downward. Hopefully with this last film we have hot rock bottom and can begin to steady back off. I know that is rather unlikely with so many movies left on this set. I was sort of aware of the fact hat I would come across movies that would either leave me with little to say or a desire to not write about them. 984: Prisoner of the Future is one of those movies.



This movie left me so empty that I was seriously tempted to skip it, but that would cause me to fail my self imposed challenge and I don't want to do that, at lea not yet. Can you see me stretching for stuff to say yet without even talking of the movie in question? I thought so. The movie is that entertaining.

984: Prisoner of the Future is actually a failed pilot for a Canadian television series, how they planned on making this a series, I have no idea. I suppose it could be like Mulholland Drive, which David Lynch intended for a series, was rejected, and in turn padded with more footage to make it a stand alone film. Whatever the reality is, this movie is nowhere near the Lynch flick.

It was written and directed by Tibor Takacs. He went to make the memorable film The Gate, but most of his career has been on tv episodes and SyFy channel type movies. This movie was really low budget and seems to want to be more of a message movie than anything else. It was pretty heavy handed in the whole government is ad thing, but beyond that I was just too bored to care.

The movie concerns a businessman names Tom Weston (Stephen Markle) who is arrested, along a bunch of other people, for fake crimes when a new political regime takes over. He is thrown in prison, guarded by robots on rollerblades. He is tortured and questioned by the warden, trying to get him to confess to the crimes he did not commit.

That is really all there is too it, that is until he tries to escape at the end leading to the big twist. By then I just didn't care. I really did not do much for me. It is a cheap looking movie, bare sets, basic grey color scheme, lots of talking and no by with any charisma to care for. Te roller years were kind of fun, especially the Kung fu chop action, but too little too late.

Just skip this and go watch The Gate again.

Not recommended.