Megaforce

Start your engines for ROAD RAGE Month at Mondo Mondays, featuring terrifically trashy tales of gas-guzzling vehicles gone wild!

“There Has Never Been a Power like Megaforce!” An elite troop of high-tech heroes battle power-crazed dictators while riding flying motorcycles, futuristic go carts and various other silly sci-fi vehicles in this campy, jaw-dropping, stunt-heavy action flick that’s totally mega and totally hard to believe. Directed by stuntman-turned-filmmaker Hal Needham (Cannonball Run), Megaforce stars Barry Bostwick (Brad from The Rocky Horror Picture Show) as a “new superhero for the ‘80s” named Ace Hunter. Sporting an awkwardly tight gold spandex bodysuit, floppy headband and puffy frosted hair, Commander Ace enjoying joyriding on his flying motorcycle and leading the Megaforce, “a phantom army of super elite fighting men whose weapons are the most powerful science can devise.”   Rolling around the desert in their dune buggies and chintzy “mega-cruisers,” this band of wisecracking All-American jocks, cowboys and tech nerds (including Michael Beck from The Warriors) constantly search for different ways to blow stuff up real good with their cool mega-lasers. When a military officer from a neighboring country (played by Persis Khambatta, the bald alien from Star Trek: The Motion Picture) asks the cheesy fraternity to help her people defeat a maniacal fascist dictator, it’s naturally “mega go time” for our democracy-loving super team. Hysterically, hypnotically terrible, with some of the worst acting and directing of the entire decade, this surprisingly big-budget but incredibly low-rent looking action debacle – a major inspiration for Team America: World Police –  was a mega-flop at the box-office, killing off all plans for a proposed Megaforce franchise. See it, or forever wonder what you’ve missed. (Dir. by Hal Needham, 1982, USA, 99 mins., Rated PG)