Review of Murdercycle (1999) by Josh G — 19 Nov 2009

I don't know for certain whether Murdercycle played on the Sci-Fi channel, but it definitely looks as though it out to. Done on an extremely low budget, the movie's special effects are limited mainly to slow-motion shots of a biker dressed in a futuristic suit, shooting lasers at innocents and then disappearing into nothingness via the magic of, um, cutting.

In the beginning, a motorcyclist gets lost and finds himself near a government testing site or something. The purpose of the land is never really explained, but it does have a nice pond and a deserted town. So there's that. Our motorcyclist gets hit by a meteor - he and his motorcycle are transformed into an evil hell-being whose goal is to drive around and murder everybody who is around.

So we are introduced to an elite government team, hand-picked to go in and fight this demon. Of course, it's all a big cover-up, so the operation is not officially happening. The leader of the team is a nearly finished army regular, he's got a couple of soldiers backing him up, and then they've included a doctor and a woman who is telekinetic. "A more accurate term would be psychometry," as she helpfully explains. Alright, let's go kill us some bad guys.

Unfortunately, the biker seems impossible to kill. No amount of bullets will harm him, and our group is merely standing in the way of danger. Still, that's not enough to prevent them from rooting him out and shooting at him again and again with their puny man-made bullets. Dr. Telekinesis keeps seeing things and hearing things and maybe there's a love story brewing. Maybe not. One of the soldiers turns out to be a CIA operative, and there's a big hullabaloo about how he should be guarded in case he tries to hurt anybody.

And then finally, the reason I rented this movie in the first place, Christian film actor David A.R. White arrives. Hoorah! Of course, this is not a Christian film - as evidenced by the murder and continuous use of the word "shit" throughout the movie. White plays a scientist who was working in the test area, doing.. um.. well, something. He actually does a pretty good job stepping out of the plain and pleasant demeanor that he's cultivated in his later work. Here, as a exuberant and geeky scientist, White fits the bill perfectly.

But anyway. The group continues walking around, looking for the biker and narrowly avoiding their own deaths by him. The plot tries to twist, but the attempt is half-hearted and forgettable. The climax, in which they figure out how to destroy the biker (who cares about the human being underneath?), is a horribly lazy conclusion in an already boring project.

Murdercycle is far from a good movie, but aside from a few silly lines and the yawn-worthy visual effects, it doesn't really cross over much into the hilarious as often as I would have liked. The movie is on a much smaller scale than its title and synopsis would have you believe - not much happens beyond people walking around and yelling at each other. Really, it's not good... but it's not anything special.