In case you ever find yourself in that position, or you hear someone else, thinking that the Marvel Cinematic Universe films are weak or under-par or just simply *bad*, I encourage you to check out Man-Thing. Actually I don't because this would almost come across as a recommendation, and it's not that. It's about perspective: you can watch things like Thor 2 or one of the Amazing Spider-Man movies (and yes, Spider-Man 3 if you don't care for it), and realize 'yeah, well, at least it's not Man-Thing.' This is such a waste of time, and more than that a waste of potential - yes, potential - that it's barely on-par for the sludge that passes for Syfy channel movies of the week.
Everything is stock here, everything. Stock opening with the horny teens having sex in the swamp and one of them getting killed (lots of blood, to be sure, but not a single f*** given to suspense); stock villain with his 'you Yankee Sheriff don't understand get outta my way' twang; stock lead who barely makes a different facial expression except constipated consternation; stock friend deputy who we know may not last long; stock backwoods "good ol' boy" yokels where the closest thing to a joke involves taking a s*** in the swamp at night (and then, ::GASP:: one of them falls in to what looks like other s***); laughably stock Indian guide who patiently exclaims over a montage about how the "Man Thing" came to be due to corporate man's interference with oil rigs and who knows what; and stock love interest who really becomes a love interest because it's about that time for the hero man to kiss the hero girl and for them to almost have sex at an importune time.
Did I mention this movie is quite poor, because it is. And I think that it could have had potential as a) if it embraced it's dumbass B-movie roots and went for broader, or at least were more sincere in some other way, like with a script that went for crazier ideas or stakes, or b) if, I assume, they stuck closer to what Man-Thing actually is in the comics (I'd assume from what I've read from others reactions, I haven't yet read it though it comes from Steve Gerber who created Howard the Duck, that it's not close at all). Or maybe a stronger director with a better grasp on horror or comedy or horror-comedy. The best that Brett Leonard is able to muster for anything 'creative' or out of the box comes in super-fastly-whiplash-style editing to transition from, uh, one scene to another whenever it's time to get EDGY in that way that is terribly dated a decade on (though it was likely dated in 2005).
The acting is equally stock as the actors, though as one thing to give the movie credit the actor playing the bat-s*** photographer who keeps popping up in the 'Dark Water' of the swamp was fairly entertaining. But aside from that no one is memorable, certainly no one who can inject some madness or life into the thing. It's trying to play it too straight and be too serious-minded, but it the director and crew don't have the skills (or budget) to give anything close to some actual terror or properly mounting suspense. It's all a lot of people wandering in dark swamps and then BOOM then comes the CGI 'Man-Thing'. Indeed the best thing about the movie is the title, which I'm sure at the time Marvel patted itself on the back and handed out giant cigars for the whole staff for the fact that they got a comic called Man-Thing.
And it's not like I went into this wanting to hate it, at least not to this point (I suspected, given it was never released to theaters, to lower my expectations, but not to the point of bottom of the barrel). I want more raw, hard-R rated flicks from the likes of Marvel - the first two Blades and Punisher: War Zone embraced their B-movie roots and had good-to-decent directors behind them - but there needs to be a strong vision or something new to the table. Practically everything in Man-Thing, from the Indian environmental "messages" that feel somewhat coopted from *Swamp Thing* (and I'm sure with the comic that was intentional) to the small-town folk who are given the blandest, most generic 'Southern-good-ol'-f***-yeah' dialog, is telegraphed, rote, like things picked up off the dirty, un-vacuumed-for-15-years floor of a hack screen writing pig-pen floor. Even when we see the Man-Thing itself it feels disappointing, with the only thrill coming when it does something especially gory but that too isn't unexpected.
Only for the most die-hard horror-gore-comic-book fans. Or if you want to get that perspective I mentioned earlier. Or if you like a villain with the last name "Schist". Get it? It sounded like it's called s***!
