Steel

I rented this film at Hollywood Video. I expected humongo crap. I was wrong.

While Shaq isn't the greatest actor (or basketball player- go spurs go!) the rest of the cast us pretty good. I enjoyed the antagonistic Nathaniel and the impress Henry family.

Yes, the music is not the best, but it's not awful.

The Bottom Line: An enjoyable action movie experience! 6/10 Chili Peppers!!!

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.

As an enormous Superman fan I picked this video up (for less than 5 dollars) just to add to my collection. I know it had nothing to do with the actual origins of the DC Comics Steel which came from the Death of Superman story but still has some similarities. The story revolves around John Henry Irons, played of course by Shaq, an army Lieutenant who worked on the creation of high tech sonic weapons along with Susan Sparks, played by Annabeth Gish, and Nathaniel Burk played by Judd Nelson. After a miscalculation leaves Susan paralyzed Irons leaves the army into civilian life. Nathaniel becomes the evil nemesis building the weapons and preparing to sell them to world arms dealers but first testing them on bank robberies with street gangs. Irons with the help of Susan referred to as Sparky and Iron's Uncle Joe played by Richard Roundtree build their own crime fighting weapons as well as a head to toe...well except for his face...outfit of steel.

The acting does get rather bad, it feels like a grade school play, and the jokes get far too reality based as so many people have pointed out. The Shaft joke just isn't funny, and the basketball references are unnecessary but that's not what wrecks the movie. What wrecks the movie is the storyline. They could so easily have based this character after the Superman origin. They made reference to the man of steel so many times that it would not have taken much to create Iron's character following the death of Superman. Shaq is not a terrible actor, there are far worse, but his physical stature makes his regular joe schmoe character almost unbelievable.

He towers above everyone and just looks silly. They never establish any sort of romance between Susan and John Irons although they hint to it, it never turns into anything. The story moves along at a good pace, and I thought Judd Nelson played a kick butt bad guy...although he played it almost sarcastically, it fit the movie really. The special effects were cheesy and obviously cheap but I can look past that. The part that bothers me the most is that his "steel" suit being bullet proof is fine but the good 5 or 6 inches on his face that was uncovered miraculously never got touched by bullets or anything else.

Plot holes are almost expected in a film like this so you have to swallow your reality to enjoy it. But sometimes if the movie isn't good enough, it's not worth swallowing anything. I don't regret watching it, it's not the worst movie I've ever seen that's for sure. 5/10

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

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!