Steel

Oh man, I don't believe this. Perhaps with the exception of "Barb Wire", I don't think I have watched anything that comes anywhere near this. When I come to think of it, "Barb Wire" is actually better than this, because I could laugh while watching it. This film is so bad it reaches a certain quality of lousiness only reserved for the very worst of bad ideas. I mean - Shaquille O'Niell in a steel suit with a super weapon made from the contents of a lost-and-found at the scrap yard? Please!

Garbage superhero movie based on the Superman spin-off character, Steel. One of the all-time bad comic book movies. Shaquille O'Neal is terrible, delivering lines like he's reading a menu. The armor his character wears is ludicrous and cheap. His sidekick is a woman in a wheelchair named Sparky, played by Annabeth Gish. Poor Annabeth tries but the material she's given is dreadful. Judd Nelson gives a self-consciously bad performance as the villain Burke. He knows he's in trash and doesn't even try to make the material work. In many scenes he's clearly suppressing laughter at the terrible lines he's given. It may not be professional behavior but I can hardly blame the guy. Collect that paycheck, Bender. Despite taking place in 1997, the police are driving cars that look like they're from the early '80s. Just another sign of the shoddy production, I guess. The whole thing looks cheap like it was produced by the dollar store. I suppose there is some unintended comic value of the "so bad it's good" variety. But mostly it just stinks.

This movie could have been lifted out of the doldrums with decent dialogue. Shaq was much better this time around (as opposed to "Kazaam", although that's not saying much). Burke's "wisdom" to his gang member is absolutely laughable, and especially don't miss Shaq's awful "cool, just like you" at the beginning.

Steel did some things right; some parts they tried to make funny were genuinely funny, and the plot was pretty interesting. However, the parts where you "laugh with" the scriptwriter are pale in comparision to those where you "laugh at" the scriptwriter.

In summation...you need to see this movie.

O'Neal is John Henry Irons, a military weapons specialist who's just been discharged and returns home to enjoy civilian life with his close-knit family until one of his corrupt ex-compatriots (Nelson) uses his military training to deal high-tech weaponry on the streets. In order to thwart him and stop the criminal underworld from acquiring a sophisticated arsenal, Irons becomes an unlikely hero. Believe it or not, this actually had the potential to be successful, but it's done in by dumb dialogue, unconvincing special effects, and an abundance of silly Shaq in-jokes. Might've been a better idea to actually develop the story, rather than spotlighting stupid basketball references. *½

Steel is one of those films where you constantly have to keep telling yourself "this is NOT a TV movie". A cheap, outrageously bad superhero vehicle for the acting... er... talents?... of 7'1 basketball player Shaquille O'Neal.

Commendably, the film does actually have three clear acts, and Steel's emergence, though underplayed, doesn't happen for over forty minutes. In-jokes are a-plenty, as it mentions Batman, Superman, Jerry Maguire ("show me the money!") and three instances of John Irons (O'Neal) having to net basketballs. The final time sees a life-threatening toss of a grenade. A lousy basketball player throughout, Shaq gets to quip "I never make these". Or would you prefer Richard Roundtree as Uncle Joe, who designs Steel's hammer for him? "I did the metalwork," he explains, "I especially like the shaft." Cue lots of double-takes and knowing glances, with Roundtree looking round, hands in the air, proclaiming "what?"

The special effects are reasonable for tv movie land, but, as this is (pinch me, I must be imagining it) a real cinema movie, they're quite cheap. Steel is badly written, contains atrocious dialogue, is poorly acted, shabbily directed and with an overbearing, repetitive musical score. It is, of course, tremendously entertaining.