Steel (1997)

This is a film that my box office bomb wild card review was made for. The only problem was, it wasn't out on DVD, so I put off getting it. When I decided to do this series of comic book movies, I had actually forgotten this was based on one, and didn't consider it, until a few readers suggested it. That's when I realized it was time to stop procrastinating and make this sack-of-asscrack happen.

Steel has Shaq as a dude who makes weapons for the Army, along with Judd Nelson and Annabeth Gish. While trying to impress a visiting senator, Nelson gets overzealous with one of the weapons, things go bad, and in the process Gish ends up paralyzed, Nelson is dishonorably discharged, and O'Neal quits the service. When he gets home, though, he starts seeing his weapons pop up in the hands of the local street gangs. He calls in Gish and an old buddy in Richard Roundtree, and together they take down Nelson before he can sell his guns to anyone bad.



There are days when I absolutely love what I do here, when I find some great gems, or someone sends me the funniest bad movie ever. Then there are times when I wonder if it's worth it to put myself through the ringer-- and this was one of those times. I knew I was in for it it when I hit the display button to see how far in I was, thinking it must've been like 45 minutes, only to discover to my horror that that 45 minutes was merely 18 minutes of real movie time. They should've had Mr. T in the very beginning, warning us "My prediction for this movie: Pain!" It's almost traumatizing to relive it again so soon, considering I only saw it a few hours ago.

I don't know what was worse, the script or Shaq's acting. It's amazing that a guy that's so naturally charismatic could be so bad at reciting lines in a manner that sounds like something more than just a guy reciting lines. At times I wondered if he was on SNL reading from cue cards off set because the writers just got done with it with no time to rehearse. And maybe that's how this whole thing was done, because the script at times sounded like something Ed Wood would've thrown together, especially at the end. It seemed like it wasn't even proofread. It was hard for me to reconcile that this was a feature film that played at my local movie theater, as opposed to one long sketch on Mad TV.



There was one very bright spot, though, and that was Judd Nelson as the head baddie. If he didn't make such a great villain, I would've been rooting for him over Steel, but because he did such a great job being evil I wanted Steel, no matter how ridiculous he looked, to win. My friend at Movies in the Attic has been on me to get more Judd Nelson on my site, especially since this is the first film of his I've reviewed (I think). I couldn't agree with him more. Not only that, but Nelson is from Portland, ME. Who knew?

I have very little exposure to the comics that this character is based on, so I went on Wikipedia and gave myself a crash course. One striking thing about him is he's the exact opposite of Superman. Superman's has so many superpowers, the writers had to invent Kryptonite to make him vulnerable to something; while Steel has no superpowers whatsoever, he's just a human who's very smart. Also, Steel fits your classic hero paradigm-- he's John Henry Irons naturally, and dons his costume to become Steel. Superman is the opposite-- he's Superman naturally, and he dresses up to be Clark Kent. It's almost like Steel is Batman more than he's Superman.



I had always considered that Shaq, between his charisma and athleticism, would make a good action hero. One could teach him martial arts pretty easily, and he'd be a natural on screen. Obviously, after watching this, I can see that the natural on screen part is out, but I also saw why he wouldn't really make it as an action star: he's too tall. In one scene with A-List That Guy Charles Napier, it was just really awkward as the two walked down the road together. I still think he'd make a great baddie or baddie's hatchet man if he learned to fight, but leading man would be too much. Dolph or Dennis Rodman is probably the ceiling on height.

I used to complain that this wasn't out on DVD yet, but some movies just don't need to be transferred. You could even say some movies don't need to be made when you're talking about something like this, let alone released on DVD. If you're a sadist, or maybe you did something bad and want to repent in a way that won't leave any visible marks, by all means, check out Steel. Just remember, though there may be no visible scars, the ones on the inside might be even worse.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120207/