Our Daily Trailer: STEEL
It hurts! It hurts!
Steel, starring Shaquille O'Neal, is a truly awful movie. On every level. The fact that it's an awful comic book movie probably comes in third or fourth in terms of things that are awful about it.
Shaq is obviously a fan of Superman - he has a Superman shield tattoo. And the director of the movie, Kenneth Johnson, has some cred: he created the famous, iconic TV show version of The Incredible Hulk (and V as well, which is mostly of interest to me and Phil). Together they created... this.
Steel is a character from the Death of Superman/Reign of the Supermen storyline; after Superman chuffed it, John Henry Irons was one of a quartet of dudes to attempt to take his place. Irons has no powers, so he made himself a super suit and, in a callback to the mythological character after whom he is named, caries a big hammer. Steel is probably the most individually conceptually successful of the four new Supermen, in my opinion.
Johnson totally stripped Steel of any Superman connection and turned him into a low-rent Batman character (although really he's a precursor to the cinematic Iron Man more than anything else). Shaquille O'Neal was convincingly tall in the role, but that was about it. His performance in Steel is among the worst in history, right up there with his turn in Kazaam. One thing I've always wondered is whether Annabeth Gish's wheelchair-bound character started life as Oracle, or if it was just a total coincidence. Honestly I don't care enough to find out.
I cannot recommend watching Steel, and if you show it to others you may be brought up on charges. This isn't a fun bad movie, it's just a boring bad movie.
