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The idea behind
Tycus is one of those high-concept brainstorms that can restore your faith in no-budget filmmaking: Rip off the "astral body racing to destroy Earth" scenario of
Deep Impact and
Armageddon, but replace the chest-thumping heroics and patriotism of those films with a touch of
X-Files-lite paranoia. That the film fails to deliver on its premise is unfortunate, if not very surprising. Sleepy-eyed, bulked-up Peter Onorati stars as an idealistic journalist who, following a dishonorable discharge from the Army for hunting down a story too doggedly, has been reduced to taking photographs for a sleazy tabloid. When he gets a call from an old buddy he'd thought long dead, it doesn't take this ace reporter long to figure out he's onto something big. After a visit from the requisite mysterious messenger in a dark suit, Onorati quickly learns about a secret mining project going on in the Sierra Nevada, complete with plenty of armed guards, run by a goateed Dennis Hopper. It's a nice touch, if somewhat annoying, that our hero is so slow to pick up on what's obviously going on, and the cheap sets and special effects aren't tacky enough to annoy. The audience is asked to swallow a lot of implausible narrative touches, though--most stunningly, that no one besides Hopper and his crew have noticed a killer comet heading our way. Which makes
Tycus no better or worse than plenty of other sci-fi films that are bereft of imagination; too bad after that nifty setup.
--Bruce Reid
