'Murdercycle' is a ride for kiddies

Murdercycle (1999)
Starring: Charles Wesley, Cassandra Ellis, Michael Vachetti and Robert Staccardo
Director: Tom Callaway
Producers: Charles Band, Kirk Edward Hansen, Donald Kushner and Peter Locke
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A psychic spy (Ellis) and a Marine squad battle an alien invader shaped like a motorcycle and rider in an isolated CIA secret base. Meanwhile, a CIA agent (Vachetti) is trying to conceal the real reason for the alien attack.



"Murdercycle" is the sort of movie that a 12-year-old boy would get a kick out of--lots of gun play, a little bit of blood, a little bit of strong language, and an alien motorcycle that can turn invisible and that blows the crap out of everything it comes across with laser beams and missiles.

But, for anyone who is a little older, the film is too aimless and too empty of content to be worth your while. And for anyone who is a LOT older, and who happens to have been a fan of Marvel Comics during the 1960s and 1970s, the film is downright annoying because of the way the characters are named.

Every character in the film is named after a top comic book creator, with the two lead characters being named Kirby and Lee after the creators of the Fantastic Four. The oh-so-clever writers make sure that we don't miss this fact by making repeated references to the Fantstic Four comic book series. And then they proceed to use the names at every possible opportunity just to make sure we all get the gag. It's a gag that becomes very, very labored well before this 90-minute picture is over.

Unless you have some young kid you want to watch a sci-fi/action film with, or you're running a Full Moon-oriented blog like me, this is a movie you can skip.