STEEL (Warner Bros.) Starring: Shaquille O'Neal, Annabeth Gish, Richard Roundtree, Judd Nelson. Screenplay: Kenneth Johnson, based on the comic book characters created by Louise Simonson and John Bogdanove. Producers: Quincy Jones, David Salzman and Joel Simon. Director: Kenneth Johnson. MPAA Rating: PG (profanity, comic book violence) Running Time: 97 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
It doesn't take long to figure out that there's something decidedly unfashionable about STEEL. The opening theme song, with its wakka-cha-wakka guitar track, sounds like it was salvaged from a 1970s TV series; ditto the no-nonsense exposition, arch-villains and even archer performances. All of which is quite appropriate, since writer/director Kenneth Johnson wrote and directed for 70s adventure series like "The Bionic Woman" and "The Incredible Hulk." You might swear that Johnson had made STEEL 20 years ago, dusted it off and gussied it up with a few modern special effects, if not for the fact that Shaquille O'Neal would have been in pre-school at the time.
The funny thing about STEEL is that it's so unfashionable it's actually refreshing. The plot casts O'Neal as an army weapons expert named John Henry Irons, who leaves the service when one of his creations accidentally leaves his good friend Sparky (Annabeth Gish) a paraplegic. "Johnny" is resolved to lead a quiet civilian life until he notices that some powerful military hardware has ended up in the hands of a street gang. With the help of Sparky's electronics wizardry and the raw materials provided by his junkman Uncle Joe (Richard Roundtree), Johnny creates a high-tech suit of armor to help him bring down the turncoat soldier (Judd Nelson) providing military technology to criminals.
Thus is born Steel, a hero with a decidedly unfashionable modus operandi: he just wants to make the world a better place. He isn't a tormented soul seething with a need for vengeance, or a shady anti-hero with a dark side and a hundred vices to "humanize" him. He doesn't even kill anybody. He simply acts out of a sense of responsibility...and he's very polite.
Perhaps it helps to have a certain nostalgia for the admittedly B-grade TV STEEL is modeled after, because it's certainly nobody's idea of stellar film-making. Shaquille O'Neal, who still can't act a lick, coasts through the film on his affability and a running gag about his inability to make free throws. Johnson asks little of his actors -- he's used to working with Lou Ferrigno, for heaven's sake -- offering them direction which seems to consist of "stand there and read your lines." He seems perfectly aware that STEEL is a formulaic action film with stock characters and fight scenes placed at carefully spaced intervals, yet he also seems perfectly sincere about his subject.
That sincerity is part of what makes STEEL so improbably satisfying. Johnson refuses to wink at Steel's selflessness, or to mock him for being such a square; he refuses to take his straightforward narrative and turn it into a collection of incoherently edited battles peppered with one-liners. He has made a film about role models, role models who happen to be an African-American man and a disabled woman, and you get the impression that the people involved feel good about that without preaching about it. STEEL isn't going to dazzle anybody, particularly the kids who will make up most of the audience. They'll be used to cutting edge effects, chaotic battles and even more chaotic storylines, not the perfectly comprehensible (if extremely simplistic) narrative of STEEL. Those kids may find it all pretty old-fashioned, but I hope there's still a place for old-fashioned heroes, the kind who say "Yes, ma'am" and mean it.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 men of steel: 6.
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