Future Man (Season 2)

Future Man was one of those TV shows that probably could have done well with just one season.  While a second season was implied, it was a complete story that could easily have left you wondering.  Josh Futturman was a guy that was trying to beat an unbeatable game called Biotic Wars.  When he becomes the first person to do so, he’s visited by the game’s two main characters, Tiger and Wolf.  It turns out that the game was a recruiting tool.

The entire first season was a series of in-jokes and references to time travel stories and their tropes.  Over various trips, little changes and what does change is usually for the worse.  The season ends with Josh in jail, having ruined his life.  He doesn’t mind so much, as he seems to have saved humanity from Dr. Elias Kronish‘s cure for herpes.

Season 2 begins with Josh visited by Tiger and Wolf again, only to realize that it’s all an illusion.  Humanity wasn’t saved, only it was the actions of Dr. Stu Camillo that did us all in.  Josh must reunite with Tiger and Wolf to once again try to save humanity.

There’s a similar dynamic with the trio.  Instead of Tiger and Wolf being the fish out of water, Josh is also out of his element.  The entire season takes place in the future, leaving the present-day world behind.  (All but the last episode take place in 2162.)  Tiger and Wolf still look down on Josh, even though he makes important contributions.   Names in the new future are based on function rather than being named for an animal.  Wolf finds out that his counterpart makes wheels and is called Torque.  (Tiger’s counterpart is named Ty-Anne.)

Those that haven’t seen the first season may want to start there.  This isn’t a series where you can pick it up anywhere.  It’s also meant for people who are familiar with science-fiction movies.  The season finale alone makes light of all the divergent timelines that the trio has created.  (It would appear that changing events doesn’t erase the original set of events.)  Much of it will seem ridiculous, but this is meant to be a comedy.

There’s a part of me that wonders how long the series can keep this up.  The second season does set up a third.  I’m very curious to see what that would look like.  Could they keep it going for a fourth or fifth?  Possibly.  There’s plenty of science-fiction to parody.  The overall stories are well-planned and obstacles seem natural.  It’s also not concerned with having to use all of the characters.  As with the first season, episodes may focus on Wolf or Josh.

I will warn you that it is for adults.  If you’ve seen the first season, there won’t be any surprises.  Much of it will come across as juvenile.  There are a lot of sexual humor, some of it even Freudian.  Scatological humor isn’t unheard of in the second season.  You get some of it in the trailer I’m including, but not all of it.  (Soiling oneself is used as a test to see if you’re a biotic or not.)  If you made it all the way through Season One, you should be fine with Season Two.

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Future Man (Season 1)

If you watch enough time-travel movies, there are certain things that would be good, like stopping Hitler before he becomes the leader of Germany.  If any of us invented a time machine, that’s probably the first thing we’d look in to.  The problem is that there’s no promise that this would be effective.  There were a lot of other factors at play, so there’s no guarantee that someone much worse wouldn’t have come along and done the same thing.

Such is the problem that Wolf and Tiger have.  They live in a world where genetically modified people known as biotics rule.  Regular humans have no hope except with time travel.  They’ve traced the Biotics’ origin to Doctor Elias Kronish,  All they need is a savior.

What does it take to become a savior?  That’s what Josh “Future Man” Futturman finds out when he beats Biotic Wars, a game that no one else has beaten.  Wolf and Tiger show up in his room to recruit Josh into their war.  You see, in their time, warriors play video games for training.  What they don’t realize is that Josh thought it was just a game.  Yes, in a giant nod to The Last Starfighter, they used a video game as a recruitment tool.

The first episode should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect.  There are plenty of references to major time-travel movies, like Terminator and Back to the Future.  There are all manner of sexual situations, like Tiger and Wolf having sex to relieve tension.  This is not a TV series you want to watch with your children.  Or your parents, for that matter.

The series has 13 half-hour episodes, meaning that it’s very easy to binge watch.  I was worried that the series might drag, as several other series have.  This isn’t a problem.  In fact, the series was originally developed as a movie.  It was eventually realized that they needed more time to tell the whole story.

Part of this is that they have several setbacks.  Josh is insistent on not killing Kronish whereas Tiger and Wolf would simply kill him as a baby.  Many of Josh’s attempts result in either failure or making the situation worse. I kind of wonder why Tiger and Wolf needed Josh in the first place, since it should be relatively easy to get that information.  It’s pure chance that Josh works at Kronish’s research facility.

It seems like much of the plot revolves around paying homage to various tropes of the genre.  In terms of time travel, very little is original.  Josh points out that killing Kronish at an early age is the central plot of the first Terminator movie.  There is also an episode that loosely resembles Back to the Future.  This isn’t to say that it’s not entertaining.  Wolf has an instant attraction to pickles and eventually takes up cooking, which leads to an interesting episode.

The series is at least maybe a little more realistic if that can be a thing with science fiction.  The amount of culture shock experienced by Tiger and Wolf is believable.  I also think most people in Josh’s situation would also teeter between wanting to go on an adventure and not waning to screw things up royally.

It did end up being a fun series.  (Yes, I know I’m a few months late in reviewing it.)  I don’t want to ruin the ending, but it looks like there will be a second 13-episode season.  I’ll be looking forward to it.


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Izzy Gets the Fuck Across Town (2017)

I came in to this movie expecting a stinker.  I normally hate movies involving a downward spiral and that’s fully want I expected this to be.  Fortunately, if there was a downward spiral, it happened before the start of the main plot.  It starts with a woman talking to a girl, presumably her younger self, in a monochrome red scene.  I found myself asking what I had gotten myself into.  I considered walking out, but I decided to stay.  I had already purchased the ticket, after all.

After this scene, we meet Izzy.  She wakes up next to a guy.  Her best option would seem to be the walk of shame until she sees a postcard and realizes that there may be more to this guy.  She wakes him up to find out that he doesn’t have any memory of the night before, either.  He winds up seeming like a decent guy.  This winds up being a pretty good parallel for the movie.

After this scene, Izzy finds out that an ex-boyfriend is not only getting married, but he’s getting married to a former friend of hers.  Her sole mission over the next five-and-a-half hours is to get to the engagement party, which happens to be on the other side of Los Angeles.

It would seem easy enough for most of us.  The only problem is that her car is still being fixed.  She’s also $35 overdrawn and 48 hours from being evicted from her friend’s couch.  Thus, she has to find some friend or acquaintance that could help her.  She’ll even accept help from a total stranger.  (Apparently, taking the bus is beneath her.)

Izzy is not a particularly sympathetic character.  I get the whole wanting her boyfriend back, but it’s hard to imagine that crashing an engagement party would work.  I mean, he asked someone else to marry her.  That someone ended up being a former friend of Izzy’s and neither of them thought to involve Izzy.  That should tell her something.

For most of the movie, she wears the uniform for a catering job she lost because she got into a physical fight…with her boss.  She was in a band with her sister, but the sister moved on and seems to have a respectable life.  Someone even tells her that she could have had a solo career; she’s that good.  It’s just that she didn’t seem to get over her sister leaving.  Izzy is the only one that seems to have not moved on.

It’s very easy to think that Izzy got what she deserved.  She was given a good job, which she should have held on to.  She probably could have found someone new and gotten on with her life.  (Actually, that guy from the start of the movie would have been a pretty good candidate.)  The big question is what she hopes to accomplish once she gets across town.

Despite any misgivings about the movie, it ended up being halfway decent.  Many of the scenes were at least interesting.  Izzy does meet a few helpful people.  She also learns a thing or two about those she already knows, including one she calls Dick.  (I’m assuming it’s short for Richard, although I‘m not certain.)

I still feel like the movie could have done more.  Many of the people that Izzy meets are one-off characters.  They get three or four minutes of screen time before the adventure continues.  I suppose that’s the nature of having to keep moving.  You don’t get to stick around long enough to get to know people.

I am glad I stuck through it.  I find myself wondering about the ending.  Don’t worry.  I’m not going to give it away.  Part of the fun of this movie is wondering exactly what happened.  I do have a theory.  Either way, I think Izzy got exactly what she wanted, even if it’s not necessarily what she deserved.

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The Sixth Sense (1999)

Some movies have very limited replay value.  The problem with a twist ending is that it will probably put your movie into this category.  At most, you might get a second viewing just to see what you missed.  The more reliant the movie is on the ending, the less likely you are to watch it a third time.  Much of the value of The Sixth Sense is in not knowing how it ends.

It starts with Dr. Malcolm Crowe and his wife, Anna, at home after Malcolm receives an award from the city.  Malcolm is shot by an intruder who turns out to be a former patient named Vincent Grey.  Malcolm is a child psychologist who failed to help Vincent.

Malcolm is meeting with Cole Sear.  Cole’s story is similar to Vincent’s, so if Malcolm can help Cole, it might serve as an act of redemption.  You see, Cole is ostensibly a normal kid.  Sure, he’s a little weird and doesn’t quite fit in.  It’s not unusual for a kid to be picked on.

He has a secret, though.  Yup.  If you were around 20 years ago, you might remember that the kid sees dead people.  It terrifies him, as well it should.  It’s not something that a young child should have to see.  He may see the deceased hanging from a noose or with an obvious wound.

Malcolm is intent on helping Cole, regardless of how strange it sounds.  When Cole is able to help a young girl, Cole is able to come to terms with his ability.  It also prompts him to give Malcolm some helpful advice.  They realize that they won’t see each other again, as the twist ending is coming soon.

I don’t want to give away that ending, as you don’t really see it coming.  This is one of those movies to watch on Netflix or to rent.  I don’t know that I’d recommend buying it unless you’re intent on having every Bruce Willis movie out there.

I don’t see this movie a lot on the cable channels.  I don’t know if it’s that I don’t go looking for it or if it’s that it’s faded into the background.  It’s a shame because it is a well-written movie.  I didn’t see the ending coming the first time around, although I probably should have.  This is what prompted me to watch it again when it became available on Netflix.  I wanted to see all of those moments that foreshadowed the big ending.

The movie was still entertaining.  There is a scary element to the movie.  It’s definitely not something for young children.  As I said, there are some violent elements to it.  It’s also hard to do a full-on review, as it’s also such a well-known movie.  It’s well-known enough that parodies have been done of it.  The line, “I see dead people” was a catchphrase for years after the movie was release.

Still, I don’t think I’ve seen the movie since it came out in 1999.  As good as it was, it wasn’t a movie that I felt an urge to see again.  It will probably be another 17 or 18 years before my next viewing.

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