FUTURESPORT (1998)
A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2004
Ancient history records situations when opposing armies chose to
compete through duels between their champions rather than engage
in full-scale battles. According to the creators of FUTURESPORT,
1998 television film directed by Ernest R. Dickerson, such practices
might become popular in near future.
In the world created in Robert Hewitt Wolfe's script basketball
disappeared in 2025, following devastating corruption scandal within
NBA. Tremaine "Tre" Ramzey (played by Dean Cain) and Obike Fixx
(played by Wesley Snipes) grew up in Downzone - futuristic Los
Angeles ghetto - and found alternative to basketball in the form of
futuresport - combination of basketball, baseball and hockey.
Futuresport was supposed to be embraced by local gangs and used as
non-lethal alternative to turf wars. Years have passed and two of
game's founders chose different paths. While Obike remained in
Downzone, "Tre" used to commercialise futuresport. Now he is top
futuresport player and world's greatest celebrity. In the meantime,
world got into trouble - North American Alliance and Pacific
Confederation are disputing ownership of Hawaii, island which is
currently struck by pro-independence terrorists. "Tre" decides to save
the world from further conflict by offering a futuresport game that
would resolve the issue.
In its time, FUTURESPORT was known as the most expensive TV
movie ever made. Most of it went to special effects, and some of the
action scenes are quite attractive for television standards. On the
other hand, script suffers from usual mix of cliches, implausibilities
and unnecessary romantic subplot. The acting is mostly good, with
Snipes making the best impression in the role of character speaking
with heavy Jamaican accent. But the most interesting segment of the
film in scriptwriter's speculations about near future. Unlike most of
similar attempts in Hollywood, this one makes some sort of sense -
future incarnation of USA would clash with China, entertainment
celebrities are going to be more important and have more clout than
politicians, the gap between rich and poor would increase. Most of
the audience would probably care little about those issues, but for
them FUTURESPORT offers passable entertainment.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
Review written on July 23rd 2004
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com
- Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in
Croatian
http://www.ofcs.org
- Online Film Critics Society
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X-RT-RatingText: 5/10
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