The Asylum isn’t the only mock buster game in town. Tomcat Films is also in the “cashing in on popular movies” game. The difference between the two is that The Asylum is a polished turd that attracts stars (D list celebrities, but still high caliber for the production company) and Tomcat Films is a polished turd that attracts nobody. According to IMDB, the budget for “Metal Man” was a million dollars. That shows as the film is shot on what appears to be higher quality digital cameras and the metal suit looks like a millionaire’s Halloween costume. This leads me to believe that Ron Karkoska is a rich kid pissing away his money.
The quality of the suit does not match the quality of the film. The only credit I can give Carlos Perez is that he gives this “Iron Man” knockoff an original story. Dr. Blake (Reggie Bannister) recruits Kyle (Samuel Nathan Hoffmire), one of his college students, to assist him in his experiments on a metal suit. After being locked in a freezer to test the suit’s… durability, I suppose, the suit ends up becoming melded onto Kyle. Samuel Nathan Hoffmire’s agent need not worry. He can still appear in his own form simply by stating “Shield”. Yet he complains all the time about having the suit stuck on him for life, despite clearly being able to touch his skin when in shield mode. That’s one of the film’s many inconsistencies.
We learn that Dr. Blake purposely melded the suit onto Kyle as he trusted him in his battle against Sebastian Reed (P. David Miller). It turns out Blake and Reed were old partners on the suit. Sebastian wanted to use it as a weapon, so he killed their third partner and brainwashed his daughter, Diana (Katherine Pawlak), into working for him. Dr. Blake believes Kyle can stop his evil plan, hence why he chose him to be the Metal Man. And before you perceive him as a selfish prick, he was originally going to give Kyle a choice in the matter. He simply ran out of time. Still kind of a dick move, but an understandable one.
To help guide Kyle and keep Reggie Bannister on screen, Dr. Blake created a digital form of himself that’s implanted in the helmet to interact with Kyle. And when I say interact, I don’t mean giving pre-recorded commands. I mean speaking to him and responding to his every question/statement. He created a second life that lives on after his death. How was this man not a millionaire?
What follows is an incredibly dull cat and mouse chase between Metal Man and Sebastian. Kyle wants to avenge Dr. Blake and his parents’ death (I guess I forgot to mention that; that’s the problem when you don’t care); Sebastian wants to kill him to retrieve the suit and use it as a weapon. Diana is the damsel in distress thrown in the middle, with Kyle’s excruciatingly annoying crush, Julie (Leah Grimsson) thrown in for good measure.
I’d like to devote a paragraph to Julie and her role in this film. It appears from the beginning that she’s going to be Kyle’s love interest. Even when Diana is introduced, it seems as if she’ll still be Kyle’s girlfriend as she’s captured by Sebastian and he saves her (which I’ll get back to). That theory is crushed when all she does is whine that Kyle got her into this situation (which is partially true) and actually abandons him when he passes out because this is too much for her. Not only is this a bitch move, it’s a dumb one, as well. If Sebastian and his crew are after her due to her association with Kyle, they’ll find her anyway and kill her. Might as well have Kyle, the fucking Metal Man, by your side to help!
Now back to her capture. When Kyle finally tracks Sebastian down, he nearly chokes him to death. The only reason he releases him is because he has Julie hostage. He agrees to let him live long enough to show her where she’s located. When he finds her, suddenly Sebastian is in control and ordering both Kyle and Diane around to perform some type of surgery to remove the helmet (which has the chips he wants). Nowhere in Julie’s rescue did Sebastian get the upper hand. Sure, he pulled a gun, but we already learned that Metal Man is impervious to bullets. Why did he bow down to him all of a sudden? He could have killed him right there!
It can’t be because Diane stated that the suit wasn’t created to kill and by doing so would defeat the purpose. She mentioned that later. It can’t even be the gun, as Kyle only learns that bullets do drain his energy after he and Julie escape the building. It’s inconsistencies like this that are maddening! It’s as if everything was being made up on the fly.
At least those inconsistencies make you wake up and pay attention. Other than that, this film is dreadfully boring! There’s one fight against a gang early on that’s well choreographed, but that’s about it. There’s a boss battle of sorts near the end with Sebastian’s armored villain, Muscle Man (Darren Lebrecht), who popped out of nowhere and was never even mentioned, but it’s quick and dry. Then the film ends anti-climatically a few minutes later. I’d complain that the ending sucked, but I was glad it was simply over!
The only thing going for “Metal Man” is that it looks good. It’s garbage compared to “Iron Man”, but for a low budget independent film, the suit and effects are serviceable. The acting, on the other hand, is not. Samule Nathan Hoffmire seems to be channeling Drake Bell while P. David Miller is channeling Billy Bob Thornton. The rest of the cast is forgettable, just like this movie!
Final Rating: D