My review was written in January 1989 after watching the film on Vestron video cassette.
From the rash of look alike adventure features on video emerges a winner: "Future Hunters", in which prolific Filipino helmer Cirio H. Santiago outdoes himself in fresh and entertaining fashion.
Lengthy pic unfolds as a virtual homage to the high adventure movies of George Lucas yet moves beyond mere imitation into its own successful territory.
Prolog is set in the year 2025 with regular Santiago hero Richard Norton chased around by baddies in "Mad Max"-style cars and outfits. In a remote temple in the desert he finds the head of a spear, said by legend to have pierced the body of Christ on the cross and to hold spectacular powers.
Back in present time (1986, when pic was shot under the moniker "The Spear (of Destiny)"), statuesque blonde Linda Carol plays a college anthropology student who, with boyfriend Robert Patrick, visits the same temple Norton visited. Norton has traveled back in time via the spear's power, and helps the 1986 duo fight off a gang of mean bikers (who at first think futuristic Norton is a kindred biker, given his "Mad Max" leather garb).
Complicated plot, punctuated constantly by action sequences, has Norton expiring but setting the young couple on his mission, to unite the spearhead with its lost shaft, and use the resulting object's power tgo head off an imminent world holocaust and thus change the future from whence he came.
Elements of both "Indiana Jones" films plus a healthy sprinkling of "Romancing the Stone" are pleasantly arranged, with pic steadily put across by heroine Carol, an American beauty closely resembling Greta Scacchi. Her willingness to get her hair mussed and enter enthusiastically into the action is a big plus.
Patrick is merely okay as the hero and the villains are nondescript; more upscale casting might have earned this laudable little film some theatrical attention.
