BEFORE: If you're not familiar with the Man-Thing, he's sort of Marvel Comic's version of DC's long-time anti-hero Swamp Thing. He lives in the Florida Everglades, and he guards the nexus of all realities. Also, his touch burns people who feel fear.
THE PLOT: Agents of an oil tycoon vanish while exploring a swamp marked for drilling. The local sheriff investigates and faces a Seminole legend come to life: Man-Thing, a shambling swamp-monster.
AFTER: Though the anti-oil drilling bias couldn't be more timely, this was still a terrible, terrible movie. Perhaps the first movie that has seriously made me want to abandon this process. It was worse than "Catwoman", and that's saying something.
The movie (and I use the term loosely, since a movie is supposed to have a plot) mostly consists of people walking around knee-deep in a very fake swamp, calling out each other's names, only to find that their companion has been killed by the title swamp creature. Process repeats as necessary until the end of the film is reached.
The movie can't even follow its own rules - the Man-Thing's touch is only supposed to affect people who are afraid, yet one character clearly and calmly says "I'm not afraid!" just before being killed.
I couldn't understand anyone's motivations, other than the sheriff's desire to solve the mysterious deaths, but unfortunately this always involves going back into the swamp with more people, who end up dead. What a great plan. And this always happens at night, and no one can see anything. Please, consider investigating the spooky swamp during the daytime.
Starring no one I've ever heard of, and utterly, completely pointless.
RATING: 1 out of 10 shotguns
Did you know beforehand that this was supposed to be an awful movie? There've been a few other reviews where you stated that you weren't really looking forward to watching the movie (though you didn't say that here.) Why watch movies that you don't have much enthusiasm for when you have so many on your list?
ReplyDeleteA valid question - I could say that I watched it for comparative purposes. How can I truly be sure that the Wolverine movie warrants a 9 unless I have a failed superhero movie to compare it to?
ReplyDeleteBut actually there is an over-arcing plan, at least a rough one. This way I can plan to hit certain calendar days, like the 4th of July or Christmas, and then come up with movies to connect those days.
In this case, Michele wanted to watch a few of these superhero movies with me, particularly "The Incredible Hulk" and "Iron Man" (coming up in 2 days). I was fortunate that I had enough superhero movies to fill in a 2-week span between those films, since I knew I'd be taking a 5-day trip in between, and she only has time to watch a movie on the weekends.
I originally had "Man-Thing" on my horror list for October, and that's probably where it belongs - and not just because it's a horrible film. I knew it was bad, just not THAT bad. It was part of a multi-film deal between Marvel and LionsGate to make films for some of their underused characters.
This deal included both recent "Punisher" films, and all of the animated Marvel DVDs. "Man-Thing" is just the worst of the lot.