Review of The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) by Chablis L — 30 Jun 2013

Original post date: 2007.

My mother has repeatedly tried to convince me that Leonardo DiCaprio is a fine actor; however, I'm just not buyin it. For me, the ONLY baby-faced, smooth-chested stud-muffin is Don Johnson. Okay, early Don Johnson. Perhaps Leonardo is the Don Johnson equivalent for squealing chickies 10-15 years my minor; but he's definitely not my cup 'o java.

Maybe it's because, with each passing year, he still looks 16 years old, even though he tries to mature himself with chin fuzz. Now, I'm not saying that the ability to keep one's youthful appearance is bad thing; I'm just sayin that in my personal stud-muffin category, 16-year-old boy-men just don't do it for me.

So the other night, believe it or not, there was nothing to watch on cable; so the hubby and I popped in a movie called "They" from the "Nightmare Worlds" 50-disk DVD collection. This movie was so bad, it's almost an insult to bad movies to refer to it as such. It's about some Canadians sitting around in a remote cabin, wondering why their radio doesn't work. The weirdest aspect of this movie is the incidental music. It ranges from a terrible synthesizer rip-off of "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" theme to some dark symphonic piece better suited for an Ibsen play. There's only about seven minutes of film NOT scored by music, so you find yourself lulled into this hypnotic daydream, not really paying any attention to what's happening on screen (which is not much); instead, running through the activities of your day in your mind, scored by an insane Canadian.

When that bizarre film experience was over, we both took a shot of bourbon, then clicked on the cable guide again, hoping to find something...anything to wash those hideous Canadian images from our brains. We saw that the 1998 "Man in the Iron Mask" was just starting, so we tuned in.

We quickly realized that the movie is filled with actors we can't stand: Leonardo DiCap-bleah-bleah, John Malko-bleah, Gabriel Bleah and Gerard Depar-bleah. But hooray! There's Jeremy Irons! So it can't be that bad? Can it? Why, yes indeed! It CAN!

Forget 16-year-old boy-man; in this flick, Leonardo looks like a 13-year-old GIRL. And what really got on my nerves was his American accent. Grant it, not as bad as Kevin Costner in "Robin Hood" ("Whoa, Little John! Ew my gawd, where, like, thou go-eth, bud?"); but pretty damn bad. I don't want to hear a French king talk like a teenage skateboarder. I mean, the variety of accents was completely distracting: you've got a French king from L.A., an Irish Musketeer, an English Musketeer, a creepy Musketeer (see: Malko-bleah), and, can it be? An actual French Musketeer, but here's the catch...you can't understand a bloody word he's saying!

Gabriel Byrne always looks like he's about to cry. John Malkovich spits all over himself whenever he over-acts; and seeing as how he's always over-acting, he's constantly spitting all over himself. Eight years after making one of my favorite films, "Reversal of Fortune," Jeremy Irons still sounds like Claus Von Bulow. And that moronic Gerard Depard-bleah looks like he belongs in a puddle of mud.

Halfway into the movie, I told my husband that I hated this film more than "They." Leonardo DiCap-bleah-bleah drove us so completely nuts, that after the big reveal (once Jeremy Irons' posse cleans up the Iron Mask dude and brings him out to show everyone), we both yelled at the screen: "NOOOOO!!! It's more hideous than we imagined! Put the mask back on! Put the mask back on!!!".