I would first like to say, the title image is a picture of a Man-Thing drawing I made myself.
and now,
NOAHTHEBEST'S Forgotten Reviews,
my new article series where I review some of the worst or weirdest pre modern age superhero movies!(anything before iron man)
Today I review Sci-Fi's Man-Thing
For some background, the film was part of a deal between Marvel and Artisan Entertainment to create 15 feature films based off of marvel comics characters. The film had a troubled pre production. While an animatronic man thing costume was designed, due to budget cuts the majority of the scenes featuring the monster were done in cgi. The origin of Man-Thing also differs greatly from the comics, and he was reinterpreted as a Native American shaman trying to stop oil tycoons from drilling on sacred land by becoming the supernatural man thing. This served to play up the man vs nature aspect, make the story more realistic(because sci-fi is known for its realism) and create a more lovecraftian creature. The movie was set to go direct to dvd, but after the success of Bryan Singers X-Men and M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable, the film was released in theaters. It was critically panned, and a major flop.
And now....
My review:
After a dangerous trip into the heart of the Louisiana swamps, I have returned with the last known copy of the film : Man-Thing( not to be confused with the porno: Man-Thang), I put the film into my computer and began to watch.
THE GOOD
The film has a lot of great atmosphere. The swamp is dark and almost terrifying. It's very claustrophobic, and almost like entering another world. There's a place in the swamp called: The Dark Water, witch is pretty terrifying. The movie even begins at night in s thunderstorm as a narrator explains this part of the swamp, and the revenge to come against oil drillers damaging the swamp. In fact, one of the best parts of the film is its sense of style. While it suffers from cliche horror plots and 2 dimensional characters, the movie retains its style, playing early 2000 rock music at every opportunity. It's kind of annoying, but at least it's something. It doesn't ever stop being an early 2000's action horror film, so I can give it credit for that. It also has a nice soundtrack, which builds tension very well. Another great part of the film is the Man-Thing himself. He shows up pretty late, but when he does he looks great. It's very obvious he's cgi, and the effects are bad, they're really bad, but I'm just happy to see man-thing.
THE BAD
As I said, the characters are very 2 dimensional. You have the new sheriff in town, the evil oil tycoon who is constantly laughing evilly and hates "Yankees" , the racist southerner with a gun and a confederate flag, the mystic natives, the crazy monster hunting nature photographer, the redneck alligator hunting brothers, and the save the rainforest(swamp) protestors, and even a completely out of nowhere love interest. It's very generic, taking scenes and tropes directly from other horror films. It's also looooonnnnnngggggg...... The titular monster doesn't even come in to it until about an hour into the movie. Everything up to that is just investigating, finding a body, investigating, creepy stuff, investigating, and another body. This can work, jaws did it, but it's kinda like Godzilla 2014, you expect monster fights, not build up to monster fights along side really uninteresting characters. I'll defend Godzilla 2014 to the end, but I will admit the second act is a slog.
Anyway, the biggest problem is the Man-Thing's motives. It supposedly comes to get revenge on the oil drilling destroying sacred land, but it is insanely lenient in deciding who is and isn't guilty. The redneck brothers, the teens having sex, the deputy.... they all get killed by this thing for really no reason other than being present in the swamp. Also, the cgi in this movie is at times, really bad.
THE STUPID
This movie has a LITERAL scene where the villains laugh evilly about they're plan to kill the sherif! WTF!?!?!!
Also, you get to see the world through Man-Thing's eyes in the movie. It's..... odd. And might induce seizures, so be warned.
And, the climax of the movie is every main character in the movie running around the swamp at night trying to find each other, kill each other, find the man-thing, or kill man-thing. It's kinda dumb, but nessasary, though I'm sure there was another way to resolve all these plot threads.
Overall, this movie was pretty terrible, but it had its moments. The score is good, the man-things death is pretty cool, and the rivalry between the natives and the white oil drillers and rednecks was an interesting subplot. Overall though, this movie is just a dumb, unremarkable horror film that is better left forgotten.
If you will remember anything from this movie though, remember this moral:
Stay away from magic swamps because nature will murder you regardless of your innocence in the most horrific way possible.
Isnt that cheery?
See you next week!