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Steel

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    Ian Jane
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  • Steel

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    Released by: Warner Archive
    Released on: 2010-04-6
    Director: Kenneth Johnson
    Cast: Shaquille O'Neal, Richard Roundtree, Judd Nelson, Annabeth Gish, Charles Napier
    Year: 1997
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    The Movie:

    In 1997, someone decided that it would be a good idea to make a movie with Shaquille O'Neal in the lead as a guy in creepy looking body armor intent on cleaning up the streets of the big city. Whoever made this decision was wrong. It was not a good idea at all, but that didn't stop Warner Brothers from making it happen. You see, Steel was actually based on the comic book series of the same name where a guy named John Henry was inspired by Superman when he saved his life. He figured if Superman is out there doing good, I should pitch in and do my part, but the movie doesn't go that route.

    Instead, the film tells the story of John Henry Irons (Shaq) - get it? John Henry? He was a steel driving man, ha! At any rate, John makes a good living as a weapons designer for the mighty United States military. His pet project is to develop some weapons that will neutralize enemy soldiers without actually killing him. The army decides to scrap this project, however, because they'd rather just kill everyone. John is appalled by this turn of events and he quits.

    Shortly after, John sees gangs of dastardly criminals causing chaos on the streets using some of the very weapons that he helped to develop. He's not cool with this at all and so he uses his brainpower and hooks up with Uncle Joe (Richard Roundtree) who runs a junkyard. Together they develop a suit of weird metal body armor and some neat weapons that they intend to use to stop a man named Nathaniel Burke (Judd Nelson) who is responsible for getting the aforementioned super weapons into the hands of the criminals. Thankfully John, working under the cool superhero name of Steel, has a hot chick in a wheelchair named Susan Sparks (Annabeth Gish) to help him out with her wide ranging knowledge of electronics and computers. Comic book nerds will realize that she's basically Oracle from The Birds Of Prey. At any rate, Steel fights the bad guys with a giant metal hammer and a fancy motorbike.

    So at its core we have a movie by Kenneth Johnson, he of Short Circuit 2 fame, in which a gigantic basketball player teams up with Shaft to take on the guy from The Breakfast Club. How could a project that had to have looked so good on paper gone so horribly wrong? Well, casting Shaq was one way to pretty much guarantee the movie would fail. He can't act. At all. He's got some enthusiasm, you have to give him that, but he spends much of the film running around with a dopey look on his face failing to emote or convince. Relationships aren't really fleshed out either, meaning that you won't believe for an instant that Roundtree's Uncle Joe would want to help his steel driving nephew develop scrap metal weapons, as it's just never convincing. Annabeth Gish is fun to look at but contributes very little to the film while Judd Nelson just looks kind of confused by everything that's happening around him while trying to ham it up as the bad guy. At least Charles Napier shows up and overacts for a few minutes.

    Steel is, in no uncertain terms, a horrible, horrible film. There are way too many obvious in-jokes in the script (Roundtree mentions Shaft at one point while Shaq is given a few too many opportunities to throw basketballs around) and the dialogue is terrible. The effects look cheap and periodically flat out retarded and nothing here really works at all.

    But you know what? The movie is really entertaining. It moves along at a fairly good pace and as stupid as the whole thing is, you can't help but secretly root for Steel. There's something likeable about the big dumb oaf and if it's pity that you feel, so be it. You're never laughing with the cast, always at them, but at least you're laughing. It strays way to far from the comic book source material and the violence is way too cartoonish for it to have any impact at all, but it is what it is and that's an hour and a half of Shaq fighting crime dressed like a sardine can. That HAS to be worth something…

    Video/Audio/Extras:

    Warner's 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer looks quite good on this Archives release. The framing looks right, the colors are well defined and nicely reproduced and skin tones look good. Some of the darker scenes look a bit murky but otherwise, if this isn't a reference quality picture, it's certainly a decent one, though a few of the darker scenes do show some mild compression artifacts.

    The English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track is about average. There is some strong channel separation in spots and the levels are always well balanced. Dialogue is clean and clear, explosions and gun shots have some nice punch and there are no problems with hiss or distortion to note.

    Aside from a simple menu screen, this disc includes the film's original theatrical trailer.

    The Final Word:

    Steel is about as good as a major studio action film can get thanks to Shaq's amazing non-acting abilities but you can't help but have fun with it. Consider it a guilty pleasure or say that it's so bad it's good, but Steel will definitely keep you entertained for an hour and a half even if sometimes it's for all the wrong reasons.
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