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Tycus

Threat advisory: Guarded - General risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

It's been foretold. It's been predicted. It's the apocalypse - and it's here now.

It is the end of the millennium and the world is teetering on the edge. The usually scorching deserts of Africa are covered in snow (Sic), while earthquakes, volcanoes and heat waves strike the rest of the Earth in record numbers. History has never recorded such devastation - and it's just the beginning.

While sceptics scoff at any "end of the world" notions, journalist Jake Lowe (Peter Onorati) heads to archangel mountain in the Arctic (Sic) to investigate reports of major underground activity. Here, Jake discovers the unthinkable: Tycus, a comet twice the size of the world (Sic), is hurtling towards Earth with mind-blowing speed. Here he also uncovers the unimaginable: the only means by which mankind (Sic) can possibly escape oblivion.

Persons of interest

Todd Allen .... Menkees
Blake Clark .... Commander Scott
Sarah Dalton .... Jamie Crawford
Sonny D'Angelo .... Stevens
Shea Farrell .... Lieutenant Garrison
Sandra Francis .... Helen Crawford
Ernest Harden Jr .... Gandry
Dennis Hopper .... Peter Crawford
Finola Hughes .... Amy Lowe
Art LaFleur .... Shyler
Peter Onorati .... Jake
Bert Remsen .... Randall Barnett
Robert Romanus .... Sam
Eric A Stromer .... Phillers
Marc Vahanian .... Munson
Chick Vennera .... Stan Alton
Kevin Goetz .... Screenwriter
Michael Goetz .... Screenwriter
John Putch .... Director

Cinematic intelligence sources

Studios and distributors:

Paramount Pictures

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

Not even Agent Red.

Tycus isn't bad enough to be good. It's not even bad enough to be bad.

Peter Onorati makes Dolph Lundgren look like an Oscars contender. He's also got bigger muscles but that's of no use when everything else looks fake. The carved rock walls are completely unbelievable (it was difficult at first to discern what they were supposed to be). Even the stunts are C-grade. Finola Hughes is all real (or she has a much better cosmetic surgeon than Meilani) and actually performs quite well, but that only upstages Peter, who doesn't act at all.

Meanwhile, the astrophysics are appalling.

If the trajectory of a heavenly body is presented in a scientific journal then the journal will have checked the maths before publishing. And even if they didn't, a whole bunch of physicists would rush into print showing how the maths are all wrong.
Comets (and anything else that's zooming around in space) don't suddenly speed up and get to their target early. If they did speed up they would miss the target completely. And if they didn't speed up then all the calculations would be wrong and there'd be no panic.
If a comet hit the moon, the comet would vaporise, being made of dirty snow. The moon might hiccup, but that's about it.
Approaching comets do not affect the weather on Earth, they can only do so if the Earth passes through their tail and if that tail is particularly dense.
Nor do they cause earthquakes, avalanches or volcanic eruptions. They aren't heavy enough. Even the moon, a quarter the size of Earth, only causes a little bulge and a high tide.
As a comet approaches the sun it's tail streams out away from the sun, formed by solar wind. that means that it can only hit the dark side of the moon, that which faces away from the sun. If the moon exploded, the fragments could only hit the dark side of the Earth. Night-time. Unfortunately, the meteorites hit during day time. They also manage to knock out almost every northern hemisphere architectural icon (the Eiffel Tower, the obelisk in Washington DC) and miss larger targets like open farmland, lakes, the ocean, etc.
Concrete buildings don't explode when hit by large, fast foreign objects, they produce a cloud of dust and fall down.

But enough about the things that are wrong. How about the things that are just plain stupid? An elevator shaft terminates in the middle of a field. It has been there for five or six years. No-one who has seen it has ever thought to ask why it's there. Or why there's a brand new 4WD hidden under a nearby tree.

*Sighs*

How did anyone ever think that Tycus was worth the investment of a few million dollars?

Security censorship classification

M (Low level violence, low level coarse language)

Surveillance time

91 minutes (1:31 hours)

Not for public release in Australia before date

VHS rental: 28 February 2001

Cinema surveillance images

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Sic means "Their mistake, not mine"

Snowy Africa doesn't feature.
It isn't Archangel Mountain in the Arctic, it's the Sierra mountain range in California.
The comet isn't twice the size of the world, it's about the size of a Holden ute with a trailer.
Mankind? What about the women? Try humankind next time.