We see movies to whisk us away to other places, other times and other worlds. Hollywood stunts take the totally impossible and make them seem conceivable. This is the definition of imagination. Motorcycle movie stunts give us high speed, open air adrenaline on the big screen. These are some of the greatest movie stunts that you can see on two wheels:
The Great Escape
Starring the iconic Steve McQueen as a World War II POW, The Great Escape has one of the classic motorcycle stunts of Hollywood history. If you have not seen the movie then here is your spoiler alert. Yes, he escapes the Nazi camp and he does it on the back of a Triumph TR6. In the film, he seemingly has the whole of Hitler’s troops chasing him over open green fields until he finally comes up to the barbed wire fence that is the last boundary to his freedom. The jump he makes over the fence gives him his liberty and brings the audience to its feet.
Mad Max
The first Mad Max movie has a young Mel Gibson clad in badass black leather and motorcycle helmet that is a leftover from his pre-apocalypse days as a motorcycle cop. Max spends most of his time driving cars and semis being chased by an insane motorcycle gang. He is also accompanied by his friend Goose riding a 1977 Kawasaki KZ1000 and sporting a helmet similar to today’s Bell Rogue, available at MotoSport.com. Since this movie is all about Max picking off the gang members without stopping his truck, it is the stunts that make the film great.
Terminator 2
Two motorcycles, one semi, and two Terminators make the chase scene in this movie a heart pounder. With Edward Furlong on a Honda dirt bike, Arnold Schwarzenegger on a Harley Softail Fatboy, and Robert Patrick as the bad Terminator barreling down on them in a big rig, the motorcycle action keeps you on the edge of your seat. The best part is Schwarzenegger’s emotionless face as he grabs the panicked young Jon Conner off of his bike while forcing the bad guy to wreck his rig. This is the role that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a movie great in cult circles.
The Place Beyond the Pines
A newcomer to the movie stunt category is 2012’s The Place Beyond the Pines. Starring Ryan Gosling as a stuntman gone bad, this is a motorcycle stunt movie about a motorcycle stuntman, so you know that the tricks need to be great. Gosling loved the motorcycle work so much that he wanted to do many of the stunts himself, but was shot down by the finance people. One of the stunts involved him riding against traffic as nearly 100 vehicles avoided running him over. For those of you who care about such things, at least one of the cycles that Gosling rides is a Honda CRF230.
