Mercury Man (2006/MagNet DVD)
Picture:
C- Sound: C Extras: C Feature: C+
Thai
filmmakers seem to have a bit of an inferiority complex. Of the few titles that have made their way to
American markets recently, many seem to be fairly derivative of more globally
recognized film genres. Sick Nurses follows in the Japanese
horror tradition of the “hair ghost” that has found its way to American remakes
in The Ring and The Grudge. Similarly, Mercury Man amounts to little more than
a Thai version of Spiderman. And yet
oddly enough, it almost works.
The story
is based around Chan, a firefighter with a reckless sense of adventure and
heroism, a transgender fashion designer sister, and a mystical liquid flowing
through his veins. With these three crucial
elements, Chan becomes the superhero Mercury Man. He’s indestructible, fireproof, and for some
unexplained reason he can fly when he puts his fist in the air as though he
were Spiderman shooting a web. Once he’s
figured out his powers, Chan pits himself against an Arab terrorist
organization that has decided that the best place to execute an attack on the
United States is in Thailand. And yet,
for some reason the terrorists are the only characters in the movie that speak
English.
The
choreography team that wowed audiences worldwide a few years ago with Ong Bak is back in a brand-new,
stunningly less impressive display of martial arts prowess. Granted, Mercury
Man has more flash and effects than Ong
Bak did, but the cast simply doesn’t have the sheer bucketfuls of talent
that Tony Jaa does. But that’s almost
okay. A superhero movie like this is
invested in a different level of spectacle than a straight-up kick flick is. Where Tony Jaa jumps over people in the
street, and that’s awesome because he’s just a normal guy, Mercury Man jumps off of the top of massive suspension bridges
because he’s a superhero.
The
special effects in the film are only decent by Hollywood standards, but it
almost plays off as one of the film’s charms. The picture, in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen,
is below average, obviously losing quality in the transfer to DVD, but it may
not have been great to begin with. The
audio is a little better, but still a bit muddled, especially on the Thai
dialogue tracks. The dialogue comes in
your choice of Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 in both Thai and English.
The
extras are few, but decent. There is a
making-of documentary, which is really just cast and crew interviews, and a
“Behind the Scenes” that is simply footage from an extra cameraman that was on
set. This extra footage though, is
surprisingly informative about the process that went into making the film and
executing the effects shots. Unfortunately,
the Behind the Scenes only lasts two
minutes in comparison with the making-of documentary’s ten.
Now I
won’t say that Mercury Man is a good
movie, nor is it even a good superhero movie, but there is something about it
that’s just plain fun. Maybe it’s the
over-the-top but poorly executed action sequences or maybe it’s the predictably
bad English dubbing. In the end though,
I think it’s that the filmmakers clearly love superhero movies, and despite the
fact that they didn’t have the budget or the chops to pull it off, that passion
still finds its way onto the screen. On
second thought, scratch that. What really makes this movie so much fun is that Mercury Man blows up the bad guy’s head
with his knees.
- Matthew Carrick
