Review of The Man with the Iron Fists (2012) by Joel P — 21 May 2013

I was actually very excited to see this in theaters but it got away from me so here I am just now finally catching up with it. The results: a very mixed bag.

As the film started out I seriously wondered if I would be able to get through it with its hammy dialogue, a seemingly endless number of characters, and sometimes questionable special effects but the more it went along the more its entertainment value increased and by the end I was more or less won over by its silly, B-Movie sensibilities.

But even when graded on the It's-Kinda-Intentionally Bad-Scale, the film has some major flaws. The biggest of these flaws though surely has to be RZA casting himself as the film's leading character. I'm all about someone stretching their talents and trying new things but he clearly already had his hands full with directing this and turned in a completely boring performance for someone with such a badass name. At no point do you look at him and feel anything going in or out emotionally. It's just bland. And one can sense he probably felt uncertain about it too given his directorial choices, which seem to avoid any direct focus on him for the first half of the movie.

There were also numerous times where I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be laughing at the dialogue or taking it seriously. The script is honestly that weak.

BUT the action scenes are fun even if not directed with as much care and grace as they probably deserved. In a nutshell this could've been better but it also could've been a whole lot worse.