Review: Man-Thing (2005)
Directed by: Brett Leonard
Starring: Matthew Le Nevez, Rachael Taylor, Jack Thompson
Written by: Hans Rodionoff
Music by: Roger Mason
Country: United States, Australia
Available on: DVD (Lionsgate)
IMDb
The early years of the 21st century were uncertain times for comic book readers who liked to see movies with comic book characters. Sure, Sam Raimi had just scored a hit with his joyful rendition of Spider-Man, M. Night Shyamalan had set the stage with Unbreakable, and you had reasonably okay stuff like the Blade and X-Men franchises floating around. But moviegoers bearing scars from late ‘90s disasters like Spawn, Batman & Robin, Judge Dredd, and Steel were also subjected to some real stanky bullshit like Catwoman, Elektra, and Fantastic Four. Marvel was nowhere near the entertainment juggernaut it is today, having filed for bankruptcy and sold off the rights to a slew of characters to various film studios. One of those characters was Man-Thing, a sometimes forgotten but intriguing horror-slanted creature existing on the darker periphery of the Marvel Universe.
Brett Leonard, who actually has an interesting history in genre film with stuff like the wonderful The Dead Pit, the less wonderful but still fascinating Lawnmower Man, and Virtuosity, was hired to direct this adaptation that everyone hated the hell out of when it first dropped. I think the distaste was driven primarily by its premiere on the Sci-Fi Channel once a theatrical release was scrapped after a purportedly disastrous test screening. That sort of shit usually doesn’t portend great things for a movie. But Leonard’s film isn’t terrible. It is, however, very evident from the start that screenwriter Hans Rodionoff couldn’t have less interest in the source material; this thing is a straight-up monster movie with a monster that happens to be a swamp-dwelling 9-foot-tall sentient log with swarming red eyes and quivering plantenacles that they’re calling Man-Thing. (In the credits only; no one calls it that in the movie. This is for the best. I can’t imagine an actual human being exclaiming, “Whatever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing's touch!")
For a monster movie, this is fine. The Man-Thing is a mossy, lanky, gray-water mass with a kink for tendril-based evisceration that’s mostly a creation of practical work, augmented by visual effects here and there. The flick is actually pretty creepy at times, and the artificial fog and constructed swamp sets beget an atmosphere that feels authentically intimate and old school. The death scenes are effectively staged, and there’s some gnarly gore that is completely unexpected from a Marvel property. Leonard has you covered if you’re after flora-mangled corpses. The special effects work is superlative; even the computer-generated stuff works (outside of a finale that’s trying to do way too much with it) — surprising considering this was made during a perilous time for visual effects. This is pretty well-done for a low-budget monster movie! The problem is, the budget was 30 million fucking dollars. Twenty-nine million dollars of that must have been sucked into the fart-bogs of Dark Waters because it certainly did not make it on screen.
Man-Thing is bogged down by a hackneyed story filled with stock backwoods characters who are just passing time until they’re skewered by a branch. There’s some environmental nonsense in there, a love story that’s complete bullshit, and I think there’s some kind of bad guy who’s doing some kind of thing that’s not good for the swamp. I wouldn’t say any of that is egregiously awful, but it’s all just really lazy noise between soggy kills. Man-Thing very nearly sinks into a mediocre swamp of sadness of its own creation, but the impressive effects and surprisingly chilling vibe push it just beyond utter frivolity.
Overall rating: 5.5 out of 10
