Man-Thing (2005)

The Man-Thing is one of my favorite Marvel comics characters. He is a being made of the rotted remains of a man fused with rotted plant matter from the swamp the body was dumped in. He has no intelligence but he can feel and react in kind to emotions. For example, he reacts to anger with anger. The coolest thing about him, in my opinion, is that those who know fear will burn at his touch. (I just love saying that.) The swamp he inhabits also just happens to contain the Nexus of All realities, which he wanders into every so often to have an adventure in some other place and time. Man-Thing isn't really a major player in the Marvel Universe but has, over the course of his career, met and sometimes traded blows with other Marvel luminaries such as the Hulk.

Got all that? Ok, now forget the really cool parts like the Nexus of All Realities, sensing emotions, and burning at his touch, because we won't be dealing with them here.

Man-Thing the movie is about a much-too-young sheriff investigating some disappearances which have occurred near the town where he has recently taken up office. Most of them seem to be related in one way or another to the oil rigs being built in the swamp by an eeeeee-vil capitalist. Not content to merely portray him as evil because he seeks to turn a profit from business ventures, the filmmakers have him take an almost orgasmic sense of glee from destroying swampland, displacing the Indians who live there, and murdering anyone who gets in his way.

Speaking of the Indians, the movie treats them in the most casually racist manner I've seen in quite some time. The fight for their land is really the centerpiece of the film, but they are given no voice of their own. Their cause is represented by a white, blonde, blue-eyed woman who speaks for them and seems to do most of the planning behind their protests. Thank goodness a white person is there to help out those Red Men, huh?

There are only two Indians who actually get screen time. One is the generic old shaman who knows that Man-Thing is out there and he is the guardian of their tribe and he is nature's vengeance and blah-blah-blah. (You've heard it in a million movies.)

The other Indian, the only one to not be a totally generic "movie Indian" and have somewhat complex character traits, is a half-white outcast who lives in the swamp. He was once an elder of the tribe and was, in fact, the one who sold their land to the eeee-vil capitalist. He did it so the tribe would have enough money to have decent homes, afford healthcare, and provide for their children. (Must be that Caucasian DNA, corrupting his sense of Indian purity.) Which doesn't sound so bad, really, but he is portrayed as a traitor and deeply regrets making the deal. Not so much that he was too dumb to read the fine print and sold ALL their land, just that he made the deal at all. So, I guess what the movie is saying is that Indians are better off living in rotting shacks (surrounded by barrels full of burning trash!) in the middle of a swamp with no money than they would be if they sold some of their land for a tidy sum and improved their standard of living.

Or maybe this is just a script turned out by a Plot-o-Matic with "logic" set to "off" and "Indians getting screwed on land deals" was the algorithm that came up when they hit "print".

However, consider that the two heroes of this movie are both white, blonde, blue-eyed, and are both intelligent, brave, strong, and morally pure as the fresh snow. The other white people in the movie all have dark hair and are either physically repulsive, racist rednecks, cowardly, or very stupid. I really couldn't help noting the contrast between our Aryan heroes and all the "lesser" people.

Ok, enough about how racist the movie was, intentionally or not.

How does Man-Thing himself come off? Physically, just short of great. He resembles the Man-Thing of the comics only vaguely but is a great design in his own right. His design is way too good for the movie surrounding him. More than any other movie creature I've ever seen, Man-Thing really looks like a monster created out of rotting swamp matter. This is something you could actually imagine seeing out of the corner of your eye on that fishing trip where you went just a little toooo far into the swamp. He fits in perfectly with his backgrounds and there are a few very effective shots of characters looking right at him and wondering if they really see what they think they see. I was shocked - pleasantly - when I realized that his eyes weren't glowing spheres, they were luminescent *insects* massing on his face. Which makes perfect sense in the context of the movie. He's made OF the swamp, brought together by its magic, and the glow-bugs were a brilliant way of creating his trademark glowing, red eyes.

So, movie Man-Thing looks great, and, if not exactly in the image of him, is worthy of comic-book Man-Thing.

However, movie Man-Thing falls far short everywhere else. He actually does have intelligence -- or motives, at the least. The swamp created him to destroy the oil rigs and anyone connected with them. If he can sense emotions, the movie doesn't elaborate on it. Instead of burning those who fear with his touch, he rips them apart, or uses his roots to pump them full of plant matter until they sprout. Which is pretty cool. It isn't setting them on fire with his touch if they feel fear (I told you I love to say that), but it's effective. Unfortunately, most of it occurs offscreen.

Which brings us, finally, to Man-Thing's worst problem: its budget. They were canny enough to spend almost all of it on the Man-Thing, but then they must have found themselves with precious little left to put their monster on camera. So, most of the movie is about the sheriff moving from one of the three or four locations to another and having plot-specific conversations with the movie's few characters. There are a few scenes of the two rednecks hunting for Man-Thing and trying unsuccessfully to have a bowel movement, and a few scenes of the eee-vil capitalist talking about how eee-vil he is, and that's most of the movie.

The scenes in the swamp aren't quite the movie's saving grace, but they are all effective, excepting a totally gratuitous tittie scene at the beginning (though they are quite nice). There are many good shots of - something - moving around in the dark, and a swamp is a natural place for things to jump out at you unexpectedly, which isn't done too much, thankfully. As I said earlier, Man-Thing himself is a real treat, when he shows up, though he sometimes takes his sweet time ripping people to pieces.

Unfortunately, those swamp scenes aren't enough and the movie is ultimately nothing more than a Sci-Fi original movie with a tittie scene inserted at the beginning. It is competently enough filmed and acted to be boring. I *think* some scenes are meant to be played tongue-in-cheek but the cinematographer frames everything so sharply and the actors deliver their lines so gravely that I can't be sure. Such a seriousness of tone serves to make parts like the redneck trying to relieve himself scene truly bizarre. Is it supposed to be funny? Is it supposed to be scary? Both? There is one moment of poor editing in a darkened room that's supposed to pass for a sanitarium that made me chuckle.

I really can't think of a reason to recommend this movie unless you just want to chapter-skip to the parts with Man-Thing.

Post Edited (07-11-05 11:25)