Cyclone (1987)
1/10
Perfectly Awful
17 October 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Cyclone is full of laughs and enjoyment. Bare in mind that none of this is intentional on the filmmaker's part. Because that filmmaker is Fred Olen Ray. Fred's name in the credits is nature's way of warning you that there is some plentiful bad movie coming and that you should take proper precautions. Get a lot of friends that appreciate bad movies together, and probably some alcohol too. Otherwise, you might suffer irreparable mental trauma from viewing the film sober and alone.

Cyclone stars Heather Thomas,(most famous to me for her role in the Fall Guy series), as Teri Marshall action bimbo. She lives with the Re-Animator (Jeffrey Combs) who tinkers on motorcycles for some undisclosed government agency. OR maybe it's the private sector, this point is never really made clear, and the script writer probably didn't think that much about it himself. After we see Teri pumping iron with her blonde PT and beating on some yokels we quickly realize that she is the masculine partner in the relationship. She wants to take her egghead boyfriend out dancing at a club that we quickly realize is his laboratory with some slightly different set dressing. We will see this scenery again.

However while the horrible horrible band Haunted Garage plays (I thought the song was Double Meadow, but the credits reveal it was actually Devil Metal, my bad) her boyfriend gets an icepick to the back of the head, and she'd be dead too if it weren't for some extra who gets his face slashed by the hit-man's incompetent girlfriend. Gasp! Could this be related to the top secret project he was working on in his lab? Of course. Teri goes home and via a prerecorded message, the Re-Animator tells her about his armor plated, laser flinging, perpetual clean energy super scooter. Now, why armor plating a motorcycle would be a big deal doesn't make much sense to me, sure the bike is fine but the driver is swiss cheese. Also, the energy source is a MUCH MUCH better invention than the title bike. PERPETUAL CLEAN ENERGY. To hell with the bike! Sigh! With such valuable technology on the line, you'd think the bad guys would have their best men on the job. But it's just the bozo from the nightclub and his girlfriend, a more low rent pair you couldn't find. Their vehicle of choice, a faux wood paneled station wagon. They work for Martin Landau, who will appear in ANYTHING apparently. He has promised the Cyclone to shady Asian businessmen, though it does seem that they are more interested in the power source. Teri gets visited by some government types who apparently work for the same agency as her ex-living boyfriend. They want the bike, but Re-Animator has already told her the only person she can deliver it too is the aptly named Bob Jenkins. After a crash course in super motorcycle safety, she proceeds to do so, to the tune of a song called "Edge of the Night" which I only mention because if Phil Collins wanted to, he would have a pretty good lawsuit against whoever wrote it. It sounds a LOT like In the Air Tonight. However, before Bob Jenkins can get it to safety, he gets shot by Inept Hit-man #1 and crossbow-ed by Inept Hit-man #2. Neither deciding that Teri is important enough to kill I guess. Instead of blasting them with the supercycle, we have a brief station wagon chase-Cyclone chase which ends with Teri escaping.

She hides out with her PT but...SPOILERS...she works for the bad guys! And so does...SPOILERS...one of the feds that spoke to Teri earlier! And they all know the inept Hit men! They take Teri to their secret arms dealer HQ which is...her boyfriend's lab/dance club with some boxes piled up in it, and in a vain excuse to show Heather arch her back and scream, they give her the old car battery electric torture. I was kind of surprised at this, until I remember that Teri is just a masculine character played by an actress. She's tough enough to take it until she is saved by the other female agent who shoots the bad agent as they make their getaway. (THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT LATER) Finally after what seems like several hours of movie, we see Cyclone zap something with cartoon lightning bolts. Then there's a really big asplosion and some decent car stuntwork. Teri wins, yay. The agent makes a call to her boss that they have the superbike. Her boss is...SPOILERS...Martin Landau? The hell? If he'd just waited he would have gotten the bike anyway. The "twist" makes absolutely no sense. Hell, if Bob Jenkins worked for the agency, he would have just taken the bike to Landau anyway. Maybe they needed to downsize. I dunno.

So, Cyclone. Bad movie. Good to watch with people who like bad movies.
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