Man-Thing

Marvel made Man-Thing in an American-German-Australian co-production, and just as it's a mishmash in terms of production, it's a mishmash in terms of the form itself. Aside from the brilliantly designed and digitally rendered monster, the special effects in terms of violence are rather poor. There are some pretty good acting performances, but it's a story that doesn't really stand out. This is truly able to bore audiences. Alas. (07/25/2019)

The heads of Marvel publishing probably still believe that the fantastic profits from X-Men can patch up even the less successful projects for them. Man-Thing initially starts off very promisingly, with rough switches between green and yellow camera filters, occasional fast cuts to clips, and the viewer is presented with a very tidy collection of heavily mutilated bodies (which the cameraman didn't shy away from). The plot itself holds up quite well, and thus there is a substantial amount of tension about who or what is actually responsible for the expansion of that collection. All of this can be considered a quality spectacle for about the first twenty minutes, and it can be deemed watchable for another twenty or so. However, after that, the flat natures of the individual characters become quite stereotypical, and the plot slowly moves towards an unsurprising ending. The so-called climactic scene of the shot of the full monster extinguishes even the last glimmer of suspenseful atmosphere. If Man-thing were twenty years older, it could be considered a very solid B-movie. But it's not, so I would recommend to the folks at Marvel to seriously reconsider their generous selling of rights to adapt their works into films. It's no longer entertaining and it's starting to become a joke, but an unintentional and awkward one. (08/08/2005)