The biggest problem with any superhero movie is that it can end up wasting way too much time on the origin story leaving very little time for any actually super-hero action. Well, Mercury Man, a Thai superhero film, is so bad that the overly drawn out origin story is the least of its problems.
Chan is a firefighter who wants to be a hero. While trying to help out and a prison break he is stabbed by a mystical amulet that absorbs into his body and gives him super metal powers. But he doesn’t know how to control it and must train for a very long time and listen to very long lectures about Buddhist dogma from a mysterious woman named Purima to explain all of needlessly complex background of the amulet and what it does and what it means and what kind of powers it has bestowed upon Chan.
An evil terrorist, Osama Bin Ali, who has a penchant for heavy eyeliner, wants the amulet so he can destroy America. So he kidnaps Chan’s mother and sister to get it from him. After stopping a few petty crimes with his newfound superpowers Chan heads off to save the day. Where he fights a whole bunch of terrorists and one chick who gets herself some ice powers for a superpower showdown. There’s a decent amount of action but it isn’t very good. In one scene he has to take on two rampaging elephants. Really. But beyond that you mostly just get a whole lot of boring and needless exposition dialogue. You could probably make a drinking game for every time Chan asks for something to be explained again or more simply.
The story is totally uninteresting and the characters are there only to fill their specific role and have no substance whatsoever. But probably the biggest problem with this film is that it takes itself way to seriously. It tries really hard to be a serious film but it’s just awful. You can’t even really enjoy it on a camp level. You’d think that with oh so clever lines like, “You know who I am? I’m the guy who’s gonna kill you!” that could sit back and laugh at it, but mostly you’ll just shake you’re head and sigh with boredom.
The film is presented in 1.78:1 widescreen and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. You can watch it with the original Thai dialogue and English subtitles, but I honestly suggest watching the very poorly dubbed English. It adds a minute amount of humor to the film. The special effects are really bad but the transfer is decent enough.
The Making Of Mercury Man: (9 min.) Pretty standard making of; interviews with the director and the cast about their time on the film.
Behind The Scenes: (3 min.) A simple montage of behind the scenes footage.
Just don’t see this movie. There’s really no two ways around it. It’s bad on every level and superhero movie can be bad. The story isn’t good, the action isn’t good, and the characters are totally lame. It’s not hard to understand why this film, which was released in Thailand in 2006, didn’t get a US released until now. A complete waste of time.
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Magnolia Home Entertainment presents Mercury Man. Directed by Bandit Thongdee. Written by Bandit Thongdee, Songsak Mongkolthong and Joe Wannapin. Running time: 106 minutes. Not Rated. Originally Released in Thailand in 2006. Release Date: January 27, 2009. Available at Amazon.com.
