Metal Man

2008
Written by Carlos Perez, Ted Chalmers, and Novin Shakiba
Directed by Ron Karkoska

Metal Man looks suspiciously like another super hero who has a movie in 2008… Who could it be? I just can’t place it…Punisher? Metal Man actually is a mockbuster in the vein of the films from The Asylum, except I don’t know if that was the original concept. It looks like a fan film turned original production, and has all the hallmarks of a fan film. Bad acting, sound problems all over (you can’t hear a lot of the dialogue without turning the volume up a lot), pacing problems, the script seems made up as they go along, characters disappear, and characters go places just because they are required to by the plot. Overall, it is not very much worth your time, unless you are on a mission to track down all the weird low-budget super hero flicks that have popped up in the past decade.

Kyle (Samuel Nathan Hoffmire) – Kyle is some video game dork who is chosen by a professor with an agenda to become trapped in a metal suit for the rest of his life. Poor Kyle, I feel sorry for him. Kyle has become… Metal Man (Samuel Nathan Hoffmire) – He’s Metal Man, not made of Iron but of Metal! Don’t sue us, because he’s totally different! Just look at his face, designed at the Iron Man suit for alien Greys. Kyle can’t take off this suit, but the film doesn’t say how he pees. Expect Metal Man to be really rusty, really soon! Someone install a spigot! Dr. Blake (Reggie Bannister) – His real name is Peter Hamilton, but Dr. Blake is one of the lead developers of the special metal helmet that gives people super powers. He wants to develop it as a non-weapon. Right. Has no qualms with trapping unwilling participants in the suit forever. Killed by a punch to the jaw, but downloaded himself in the computer of the Metal Man suit so he can annoy Kyle for as long as he lives. Totally not named after any Thor character you are thinking about. Not at all… Sebastian (P. David Miller) – He’s evil! How evil? He looks like Kevin Costner…if he was EVIL! Imagine, if he was an evil Postman! An evil Waterworld! An evil Robin Hood! An evil Field of Dreams! Totally evil! Like all evil people, he is incredibly rich, and has advanced lab equipment in the basement of his mansion, along with many goons to kill whoever he wants. Marissa Lee (Jill Shackelford) – Her research scientist father was killed, and Sebastian told her Dr. Blake did it. She later finds out the truth. Sebastian paid for her to go to grad school, then hires her to examine a captured Metal Man helmet. Later becomes trapped in a helmet as well. Mecha-Terror M48 (???) – With a name like Mecha-Terror M48, you’d think this would be a cool villain, not a gimmick brought out for a quick fight with no back story. You’d be wrong. Mecha-Terror M48 wishes he was the ED-209 of Metal Man, but fails to even be those Robocop 2’s that killed themselves.

Kyle is a perpetual late student with a crush on a girl named Julie and working for a “mad” scientist named Dr. Blake. Kyle’s video game programming skills helps him do work on tissue regeneration somehow. Don’t ask, just nod. Dr. Blake’s special research project is a metal mask that has super powers, which also just happens to have a matching armor suit as well. Plus a gold and red paint job. I wonder what could have inspired him… Dr. Blake stuffs poor Kyle in this suit and locks him in a freezer, “to test for the cold”. Yeah. Dr. Blake is one sick puppy. I especially enjoy the calculator used as a readout machine, almost as fun as Antoo Fighters using a calculator as a high-tech keypad for a security lock.

Of course, during the tests, some evil goons (One a bald guy in a leather jacket, the other a dude with a ponytail) come in to menace the professor. Their boss Sebastian also comes in, and claims that Dr. Blake stole the helmet from him. Of course he is a weapons designer, totally unlike that other movie. Sebastian punches out Dr Blake (KOed in one shot) then takes a helmet that was lying around and all the computer information. They will also go to Kyle’s house to look for him for more information (they don’t know he is locked in the freezer.)

Dr. Blake wakes up, and drags Kyle out of the freezer. Dr. Blake is bleeding from his ear. He’s been punched…fatally! But even though he dies, a computer AI version of Dr. Blake is inside the helmet and can talk to Kyle, just like Jarvis but different enough to not get sued. The helmet can’t come off, so now Kyle is doomed to look like a bad cosplayer for the rest of his life.

Dr. Blake speaks slowly and annoyingly, then reveals they can reprogram Kyle’s brain by thinking of things, which also gives him the Metal Man powers. First he eliminates his claustrophobia, then he thinks of “stealth” and he morphs into the teenage boy Kyle form. That’s convenient.

Kyle’s parents are dead, they died from lead poisoning thanks to red paint put on their bodies to make them look dead. Or maybe they were shot. The two main goons (which we’ll dub Baldy and Ponytail) are inside, so Kyle as Metal Man beats them up, but Dr. Blake won’t let him kill them and tells him to go get the man responsible for the goons instead. So Dr. Blake not only trapped this kid in a tin can, but got his parents murdered! Way to go Dr. Blake!

Outside, some guys with axes and bats were just waiting for Metal Man to leave and attack, it looks goofy because it is so staged. Metal Man beats the tar out of them, Power Rangers style. You know, with a few modifications and some more fights, this would be a pretty good Power Rangers style movie. But it doesn’t do that right, either.

Back at the lair, Evil Guy Sebastian yells at his goons, then listens to a report by his female scientist Marissa (and her punky assistant Diana, the only person I cared about in the entire film) about the prototype helmet Sebastian took from the lab. Sebastian is also pseudo-dating Marissa, in a way where he is very creepy but she is obviously putting up with him because he gave her money for school and took care of her after her father was killed (he claims Dr. Blake killed her father, which we all know is a lie.)

Luckily for Metal Man, Dr. Blake has a backup lab complete with special fuel for Metal Man to drink, which is mostly black sugar water that tastes like poo. The movie explains that Kyle has a big sense of right and wrong (it was a topic of Marissa and Sebastian’s date), and then explains it again in case we’ve forgotten. Kyle’s sense is so good he says “I’ll try to do the right thing, but I can’t make any promises.” A real class act, I can see why he was picked. Dr. Blake has Kyle add more special microchips to the helmet to get more features. One feature is to hologram to look like random people. Kyle goes for a stroll while disguised and promptly gets into a fight with a very angry bad actor. Kyle just can’t catch a break.

Diana modifies the prototype helmet that Sebastian stole earlier, but he forces her to put it on and it kills her! BOOOOOOOO!!! Diana was the only interesting character, so she had to go. Can’t have her upstaging everyone else! Now it is a bunch of boredom, with Marissa too cowardly to just leave, and Kyle (now in the Metal Man suit) is harassed by the angry bad actor from before, who now has a gun. Kyle puts up a force field and then knocks the guy over. How did the angry guy know Kyle was the same guy, as he wasn’t in the same hologram disguise?

Some goons come to harass Metal Man some more, and we fail to get a good shot of Metal Man driving a van, and instead Metal Man wanders around while the goons wander around. I wanted a good Metal Man Van Driver action shot sooooo badly. Kyle goes into a house for no reason, and the three multiethnic goons who failed to defeat Metal Man with weapons earlier are now back and bare handed, and they get beaten up again. Then Kyle leaves the house. Why did you go in the house in the first place?????

Right outside the house a hot girl is being attacked by random thugs, because today is coincidence day! So Metal Man beats them up also, and uses his magic glowing hands to heal the wound on the girl. Metal Man is now Jesus? Looking forward to him being crucified if true…

YES! Metal man gets back in the minivan! By the time Metal Man drives to Sebastian’s mansion, he is in a completely different car (it looks like the director couldn’t borrow his mom’s van that day!) and he beats up the outside guard. Metal Man just walks in the house, and Sebastian watches him enter on the surveillance video (shouldn’t his security people be watching that?) Metal Man just strolls into the lab, with Marissa totally excited to see him. They both know who each other are already. That speeds up things, I guess…

Sebastian enters the room with a gun, which we already know doesn’t work on Metal Man, so the only one in danger is really Marissa (and Kyle’s kidnapped crush Julie, who was kidnapped when we weren’t looking.) Somehow, Sebastian wins thanks to the leverage of Julie and Metal Man being too much of an idiot just to punch Sebastian with his metal hands. Now Sebastian will make Kyle and Marissa do more research. You know what I want in my super hero action films? Slow, meticulous scientific research.

Luckily the guard is stupid, so he just lets Marissa leave. How many things in this movie happen because of coincidence or luck? This is like a Kurtzman and Orci script with all the dumb coincidences. It is still better than any film they’ve written because Metal Man hasn’t peed on anyone, so I will give Metal Man props for that. Kyle punches the guard and unlocks Julie, then he lets her yell at him instead of escaping. Marissa stabs Sebastian in the neck with a needle, but it does nothing so the brave villain beats her.

Oh, Kyle can become invisible.

And make others invisible.

Hey, wouldn’t that have come in handy a LONG TIME AGO???

Kyle is being shot at, and is using up too much energy. Despite the fact they repeat this mantra several times, Kyle will never suffer any ill effects from using up too much energy. Sebastian turns Marissa into Metal Woman, but she just has the other helmet and a black suit. Kyle still has energy despite walking the three hour drive (so that was what, 300 hours?) with Julie to Marissa’s farm. He even has enough energy to have another fight, so I guess he will fight Metal Woman? Maybe Metal Man should have solar panels that can charge him when he’s taking long walks.

No, wait, Mecha-Terror M48. Whoever the frak that is. Some green armored dude. Hey, if Sebastian has super-powered suit guys already, why does he need Kyle’s dumb helmet?

Hey, two guys in bulky plastic armor suits fighting in a horse pen, that’s my kind of movie!

Mecha-Terror M48, you suck. Not as much as the film, but you still suck because you lost to Metal Man. And you get destroyed, which is good, because otherwise you have to live with the shame of losing to Metal Man.

Marissa is there now still with her helmet on and needs the code to overcome the program. You know. Yeah. Way to pull something else out of your metal butt, stupid movie! Sebastian pulls out yet another helmet, because we got extra helmets all over the place! The helmets are activated, so Marissa’s bonds to her, while Sebastian’s causes him to melt into a pile of gooey skin. Then the whole thing disintegrates. What the hell just happened?

The End.

Hey, the end credits have scenes of Metal Man flying. Why wasn’t that in the REAL FRAKKING MOVIE!!! GAHGAGAGAGAGAGG!!!

Oh, wait, one year later…, the metalheads are in love. Barf.

It looks like the creators were just going to make an Iron Man fan film, but when a real one was announced they decided to go all mockbuster on it and do their own thing. Instead, they went bust, because so much just doesn’t work. Metal Man needs to die of rust poisoning and be sent to a scrap yard. The next time Tony Stark goes all Armor Wars and starts blasting people, Metal Man needs to get caught in the crossfire. The worst part is Metal Man could have been much better with a few small changes, a bit more characterization, letting a small child read the script looking for plot holes, and a talking dog also wearing armor. Or just the talking armor dog. I always vote talking dog!

Rated 3/10 (You must do math to enter this building, goon, photo guy)

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