MercuryMan

Mercury Man (2006)

I grew up reading superhero comic books and love a good superhero movie. So when I had the chance to review Mercury Man, a superhero movie with it’s origins in Thailand I jumped at the chance. And I’m glad that I did. The movie tells the story of a fireman named Chan who while trying to stop a prison break is stabbed with a magic amulet. The amulet merges with his body and gives him superpowers. The amulet was one of many and after training with the beautiful female guardian of another amulet that was stolen Chan becomes the Mercury Man. Soon he is forced to do battle with the terrorist, Osama bin Ali, who was being broken out of prison when he was stabbed with the amulet. Osama has the other amulet, and wants Chan’s so he kidnaps and threatens Chan’s mother. Chan, as Mercury Man, has to come to the rescue and defeat the terrorist threat.

There are several flaws with this movie, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying it. The story is very basic and follows just about every origin story I’ve ever read in the comics or seen on the screen. Hero gets powers thru some complicated accident or series of events and has to battle a villain that has some sort of connection to his origin. When it comes to superhero movies I don’t expect a sophisticated plot, just an entertaining one, which Mercury Man is. Now that said there are a couple of action sequences that feel as if they were forced into the story just to add to the action. While cranking up the action only helps to keep the movie from being slow, it does hurt the story and makes the movie a bit choppy. While some of the US superhero movies get A list actors and focus more on the story Mercury Man doesn’t give the actors much to do except jump around the screen and fight. Heck after watching this movie you might think that everyone in Thailand knows how to do Kung Fu as all the main characters with the exception of Chan’s mother can kick some serious butt!

Speaking of kicking butt the fight choreography in this movie is fun. Martial artists are flying all over the screen with the help of wire work and there are some fun camera tricks, including a camera that spins 360 degrees around a ledge while a couple of characters fight it out. While none of this is particularly original it is fun to watch. The costume design looks good, though it is clearly inspired by a particular US wall crawler that has had some financial success recently at the box office. I was disappointed that the CGI during some of the more ambitious scenes looks terrible and I could have done without it.

I guess in the end if you are going to compare Mercury Man to the big budget superhero movies of recent history it is going to come up lacking. They don’t have the budget those movies did and because it is a foreign film their cultural sensibilities are different. But I think if you can sit down and watch this movie without any preconceived notions you’ll have as much fun as I did. Mercury Man is released in the U.S. by Magnet films and will be available on January 27th, 2009. For more information check out the website at http://www.magnetreleasing.com/index.html

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer