Strictly average movie

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

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.

Rarely does one find a movie so bad that it achieves the often-sought paradigm of having so little redeeming value that that alone makes it worth watching. "Cyclone," I am happy to report, is such a film.I knew I was in for something good as soon as I found the videotape. I am at least its fourth owner: It has a "Used Movie Sale! $9.95" sticker on the front, and a yard-sale sticker for one dollar. I picked it up at a thrift store for fifty cents.The Used Movie Sale! sticker covers much of the front cover artwork, meaning that what I see is a truly odd blended still of the front of the Cyclone super bike, a car flipping over on fire, and Heather Thomas, wearing Flouncy Eighties Hair with her mouth open in an expression that says, "I 'ave a 'ooth ache." I saw that and thought, "All RIGHT." The case, honestly, was enough ("with nowhere to turn and no one to trust, Teri is plunged headlong into a maze of danger and deceit"), but I surprised myself by actually getting around to watching it. I always make time for the really bad films. That "Fight Club" tape can wait.Meet Teri. Teri is a stunningly well-crafted character, as we can tell from her introduction, in which she and her friend do exercises that highlight her breasts and, later, her legwarmers. Then Teri goes off to hook up with her boyfriend for the evening that goes horribly wrong. Before she knows it, Teri is driven "straight into a web of deadly double-crosses in CYCLONE." The VHS box tells it like it is.Left out of the box summary - perhaps out of some faint hope that actual copies of this film would be sold - is how awful the acting is. It might have been just me, but I kept thinking I could read the characters' thoughts through their eyes. "This is dumb," thinks Heather Thomas. "I know," thinks Bad Guy with Too-Wide Mouth.A driving force (no pun intended) for the second half of this epic picture are the car chases. Those were actually pretty good, although I'm inclined that gasoline doesn't need coaching on how to explode. What really impressed me is that, in all the chases, the streets were pretty much empty. It's like there are only twenty people in this huge city.I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Gee Wilikers! I have to see this movie!" The sad thing, though, is that you can't find it. Oh no. "Cyclone" is a film that finds YOU. Just wait. Some day - perhaps during lunch, perhaps late in the evening, perhaps "when military scientist Jeffery Combs ('Re-Animator')is murdered by hired assassins" - you will hear the rustle of legwarmers, and know that it is time.

I was expecting to view a more exploitation style of film but unfortunately this turned out to be just a badly made low budget action flick that just doesn't have the talent for that. Story is about a very beautiful woman named Teri Marshall (Heather Thomas) who's boyfriend Rick (Jeffrey Combs) works for a secret agency and he has invented a motorcycle that is bullet proof and can shoot lasers and rockets and has a helmet that can shoot lasers as well. The head of the agency Bosarian (Martin Landau) has made a 5 million dollar deal to sell it and sends two hired thugs to kill Rick and Teri and collect the bike. A tall blond thug named Rolf (Dar Robinson) and his partner Hanna (Dawn Wildsmith) manage to kill Rick but Teri survives. While at home she discovers a video tape that Rick left describing his invention that helps Teri on what to do next.*****SPOILER ALERT*****Teri is being chased by several agents and she gets caught and tortured but doesn't talk about where a piece of the motorcycle that is needed but she gets help from a federal agent named Waters (Martine Beswick) where they end up using the motorcycle for a bloody shoot-out.This film is directed by Fred Olen Ray who has made his career out of making ultra-low budget exploitation films but he made a dire mistake here by leaving out the exploitation aspect and trying to make an action film. Aside from a quick shower scene at the beginning there is no nudity and the usual titillation that viewers are accustomed to seeing in a Ray film is no where to be found. I don't think anyone was expecting Thomas to get naked but she doesn't wear one sexy outfit. Not that it stopped me from ogling her in those tight jeans and admiring her near perfect form but Ray really blew it in this case. Like all of his films the cast is fun to watch and many familiar faces have roles like Robert Quarry, Huntz Hall, Troy Donahue, Tim Conway Jr., Michael Reagan, and Russ Tamblyn. Stuntman Dar Robinson died shortly after this was made and it's his last acting effort and the film is dedicated to him. You have to wonder why Landau would waste him time with such junk like this but I was interested in the casting of Combs in a very rare romantic role. Is Thomas any good in this film? Who cares! I think she showed that she could have become a popular "B" movie starlet if she wanted but it never did happen. Ray wastes everyone's time with this effort although the cast is fun to watch but he left out the elements that make him an enjoyable filmmaker.

Although I am a fan of Heather Thomas and I have a few of her old bikini posters around here somewhere, I can honestly say that if the only movie I had ever seen her in was "Cyclone", I would never be able to guess why she had made it as far as she had in show business.Directed by Fred Olen Ray (about as good an omen as seeing buzzards circle over head in the desert), this tale of a woman (Thomas) who must protect a high-tech motorcycle from unscrupulous types is about as "B" movie as it gets (or in Fred Olen's case, "B minus").The cast itself should tell you something. It's not every movie that combines Thomas with actors the calibre of Beswick, Hall, Combs, Donahue, Tamblyn and Landau (!!). If you're lucky, very few movies do. And even though they seem to be having fun, shouldn't some of that fun be passed on to the audience? I vote yes, seems they voted no.Of course, if you ever wanted to see Heather deliver an uppercut to another woman, use the "F" word and get hooked up to battery cables, you've probably been looking for this one. Myself, I'll be content with old "Fall Guy" reruns.One star, given in hopes that when another "Cyclone" hits town, Heather runs for shelter. I know I will.