Future ‘38 (2017)
IMDb meta-data is 1h and 15, rated 5.8 by 435 cinematizens.
Genre: SY Fy.
DNA: Faux.
Verdict: enjoyed it
Tagline: Formica. Formica? Formica!
A tribute to 1930s screwball comedies blended with a 1950s SciFi B-picture, it is presented as a rediscovered 1938 film that involves time travel to 2018. What we get is 2018 as it might have been imagined in 1938 (by writers in 2017).
This imaginary 2018 is a world of bright primary colours, instant messengers, television phones literally, battery-powered slide rules, self-sharpening pencils, the electro mesh that answers all questions, victual reality at restaurants, 24-hour news (bi)cycle, and so on. It is sophomoric fun though it wears thin.
In 2018 the 1938 man is a fish out of water who cannot open a car door, wants to smoke tobacco cigarettes, and doesn’t have a personal television phone! The plot, such as it is, shows his discovery of this new world, including its slang. (Confession today I have been mystified by design-for-the-sake-of-design car doors that I cannot fathom. Am I a man of 1938? [That’s a rhetorical question: Don’t answer it!]. But in an emergency how does one open the door, one might ask.)
It does try too hard and the result is overkill but the leads are winsome and can act better than the material with a poignant finale that was signalled for those with sharp hearing.