★ 5 / 10
_**Deviates too much from the comic and has
Wuchak
_**Deviates too much from the comic and has a boring midsection**_ Marvel Comics' Man-Thing is a mindless, empathic swamp creature that lives in the…
_**Deviates too much from the comic and has a boring midsection**_
Marvel Comics' Man-Thing is a mindless, empathic swamp creature that lives in the Everglades. This 2005 film is loosely based on the story "Cry of the Native" from the 1973 comic (Adventure Into) Fear #16, which featured the Man-Thing, by writer Steve Gerber and Howland, Ohio's Val Mayerik (artist).
The plot's great: The Seminoles and environmentalists are upset over a developer taking over their precious swamp. A new police chief comes into town and has to deal with the situation, as well as investigate an increasing number of horrifying deaths in the swamp and reports of a "man-thing" creature living there.
The swamp sets, cinematography, music, locations (Sydney, Australia, of all places) and cast are all quite good. This is not a Grade-Z movie. As a matter of fact, it was originally intended for theatrical release.
The film has a good mysterious feel to it, in particular the first 30 minutes and final 20 minutes. The vibe, to be expected, is very comic booky, but the material is respected and generally taken seriously, avoiding the rut of camp.
What works best is the "Man-Thing" itself; imagine Val Mayerik's rendition of the creature with a bunch of creepy branches & roots sticking out of its back & head and you'd have a pretty good idea of what ol' Manny looks like in this film: He's an 8-foot tall, hulking, and utterly horrifying piece of man-like swamp mass.
Now for what doesn’t work. Although the Man-Thing looks great, which is a cinematic triumph in and of itself, he doesn't appear fully until the last 20 minutes. This would be fine if the story were captivating, like say "Jaws," but it's not. Although the plot's great, the story itself barely holds your attention after the first half hour and is unnecessarily convoluted with pointless characters. The middle-hour is wasted on various people hanging out in the swamp for one dubious reason or another, half of them getting picked off by the creature. I'm sure they did this to show-off the superb swamp sets and lighting, etc., but they forgot the most important part, an interesting story and characters. This makes no sense since Gerber's run on the comic contains a wealth of great material to use for compelling scripts.
Also, the film deviates too far from Man-Thing's original concept. Some new ideas introduced are great, like the way the creature looks and horrifically attacks people, but where's Manny's empathic nature? Where's the "whatever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing's touch" element? And why does Manny kill people indistinguishably? For instance, the creature kills a noble native at one point and later threatens the two protagonists of the story. The Man-Thing never did this in the comics even though he was a mindless creature. In other words, he was a force for good, figuratively representing nature and, more specifically, the swamp. However, this CAN be related to the movie as well, if you think about it.
Some things are sort of faithful to the comics. For instance, Ted Sallis is linked to the creature and I actually like the change in the movie compared to the eye-rolling “super soldier” serum angle of the comics.
For those not in the know, the first Marvel comic featuring the Man-thing beat out DC's Swamp Thing by two months in 1971. To complicate matters, the cover of The Phantom Stranger #14 features a creature that looks suspiciously like Man-Thing (albeit NOT the corresponding story inside the comic) and this issue was released the same month that Man-Thing debuted in Savage Tales #1. In any case, Theodore Sturgeon's similar swamp creature "It" appeared in one of his short stories 31 years earlier! The first comic book bog beast, The Heap, appeared two years later in 1942, obviously inspired by Sturgeon's creature.
Let's compare "Man-Thing" with the similar "Swamp-Thing" from 1982. To be expected, the creature from "Man-Thing" absolutely blows away the guy-in-a-rubber-suit in "Swamp-Thing." The sets, atmosphere and cinematography of "Man-Thing" are also better than "Swamp-Thing," not to mention the vibe's not as goofy. As for the story, I would say they're about equal.
FINAL ANALYSIS: The midsection of "Man-Thing" is lethargic and meandering, filled with uninteresting or undeveloped characters, but the film's attributes noted above make it worth checking out if you're into creature-on-the-loose flicks, particularly of the swamp monster variety. On that level it's a decent movie. The greatest part is the creature itself, which is a cinematic triumph, especially if you're a fan of the comic books. But these same fans will be disappointed because the film is a very loose interpretation with an utterly tedious midsection. It's too bad because the potential for greatness was there.
The film runs 1 hour, 37 minutes.
GRADE: C
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★ 3 / 10
"Maybe the swamp is in him... maybe he is in the swamp." No.
Quinoa1984
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…
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***!
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