If you ever wanted to see a low-rent version of Iron Man… then you’re in luck! I present to you Metal Man! This movie is clearly for those who get boners for goofy Japanese-style flicks where people run around in flimsy looking suits kicking generic bad guys’ asses. See The Guyver for reference. This movie isn’t so much badass as it bad.

The film tells the tale of a college student named Kyle. Kyle is working with a professor who is working on a fantastic new suit. The good news? The suit is badass. The bad news? The suit looks like its colors were designed by a blind man. This purple, gold, and black suit was stolen by the good professor, and when the folks who initially designed it want it back, the professor tricks poor Kyle into trying the suit on… and then he promptly locks him in a freezer. Once the bad guys show up, they kill the professor. Not finding their suit on the premises, because it’s cleverly being worn in a freezer around the corner, which is too cold to look inside, the thugs head off to Kyle’s home, where they quickly and summarily kill Kyle’s parents. Now, Kyle, with the help of Reggie Bannister’s disembodied head, must learn to use the suit in order to take revenge for his parents and the professor.

The film is directed by Ron Karkoska, a special effects dude turned director. While this is Karkoska’s first film as a director, he has done special effects work on such flicks as 2001 Maniacs, The Hills Run Red, and Reeker. Sadly, the old adage that special effects guys make great looking props, but shitty looking movies holds true here. Karkoska’s film is a miserable effort that feels more like a drama than a movie about a dude in a suit kicking some ass. The pacing of this movie is way off and it could stand about an hour in trims… which would make the film about a half-hour long. Karkoska also doesn’t appear to be a big fan of details either. There are plenty of continuity errors within the film, my favorite being when a girl wearing a silver shirt reappears in an office a few seconds later only to be wearing a red shirt… and then shows back up in the previous room wearing a silver shirt.

The cast is abysmal at best. I wouldn’t hire most of these people to eat food in the background of a Denny’s commercial. Samuel Nathan Hoffmire is a whiny, uncharismatic fool throughout the movie. He drags the movie down pretty badly. P. David Miller, who has an oddly long résumé despite the fact that he gargles gonads in this flick, plays the evil corporate man Sebastian. Miller sucks at delivering his lines, and by the end of the movie, he seems embarrassed to be in it. The only person of real consequence in the film is Reggie “Phone it In” Bannister. As much as I loved Bannister in the Phantasm movies and Bubba Ho-Tep, those are the only good movies I’ve ever seen the man in. The same holds true for Metal Man. But I still admire him for rocking the aging bald man’s pony tail. It takes some balls to look that ridiculous in everything you do.

Action wise, Metal Man is a lengthy dance of poor choreography and lower-rung CGI effects. The suit, when it’s not required to do anything but stand there and be shiny, looks pretty solid, but as soon as Hoffmire moves around, its clunky construction becomes a huge problem. Part of the lack of awesome fight scenes comes from the fact that Hoffmire is clearly struggling to see through the mask of his awesome Metal Man suit, leading to awkward movements that look staged. Gore-wise and violence-wise, Metal Man is less than satisfactory.

The real fucked up thing about this movie? It’s estimated to have a million dollar budget. I looked at the number multiple times, because I simply couldn’t believe that this much money was spent on such a subpar product. Honestly, I can think of some directors who could make the same thing with a thousand bucks. Hell, I could make a movie about a butt rocker fighting gangsters with the power of air guitar and wind up with a better film.

Final Synopsis: Metal Man is pretty bad. I don’t know that it’s laugh out loud bad either. It’s just plain bad. Skip this one, unless you have nothing to do and you like shiny suits of plastic armor and the disembodied head of Reggie Bannister talking to you.

Points Lost: -1 for poor writing, -1 for poor acting, -1 for huge pacing problems, -1 for continuity issues, -1 for poor fight scenes, -1 for subpar CGI, -1 for poor directing, -1 for a suit whose colors seem designed by a blind man

Lesson Learned: If you’re going to make a movie about a guy in a suit, make sure you’re actor can see out of the damn thing without having to strain.

Burning Question: Who would kill themselves if they were trapped in a plastic suit for the rest of their life without a chance of ever having sex again?

Metal Man
2/10

Tags: 2008, action, adventure, count smokula, dude in a suit, latest movie reviews, midnight releasing, p. david miller, reggie bannister, ron karkoska, samuel hoffmire