I rented the official Marvel movie adaptation of Man-Thing Saturday night. This is the recent straight to DVD release from Lions Gate Films. (Apparently the movie didn’t screen well so they decided to port it straight to DVD. It’s in the stores now so rent it.)

I have to say after watching it that it’s actually not that bad for a film with a 5 million dollar budget. I mean it’s not a blockbuster by any means but its far better than Anaconda 2 and that movie got a theatrical release.

This is not a superhero movie of course so it’s important to note since more folks attribute the name Marvel Comics or a “Comic Book movie” with superheroes. Instead Man-thing is a supernatural horror film.

What I liked about the movie is that it was very much a Man-Thing story, and it felt like watching one of the comic books its based on. The really managed to stay on track with the story.

But the story and writing here were weaker than I would have liked. The over all plot never hit home with me the point of everything, and even though you might get what’s going on it doesn’t REALLY draw a person in which I think really more than anything result of a lack of budget.

The film balanced between mystery and confusion. The more mystery they tried to write the more things were unclear and in turn the less I was drawn into the story.

Overall I actually did like the film, but it could have definitely been spectacular with at least 4 times the budget and some real meat and coherency to the script. With a little beefing up it could have been a huge hit. Artistically I have to hand it to the director he had a unique vision that I liked but in the end he just wasn’t given a great amount of resources to work with.

I like to keep my reviews short so I will sum it up for you the best I can. Man-thing is basically a slightly larger budgeted Outer Limits, but if you like seeing comics on film Man-thing does deliver.