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      Steel

      1997, Fantasy/Action, 1h 37m

      25 Reviews 5,000+ Ratings

      What to know

      Critics Consensus

      Steel is a badly-acted movie that indulges not only in superhero cliches, but also the sappy TV-movie-of-the-week ones. Read critic reviews

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      Steel  Photos

      Steel (1997) Steel (1997) Steel (1997) Steel (1997)

      Movie Info

      Former Army scientists (Shaquille O'Neal, Annabeth Gish), one in a steel suit, team up in Los Angeles against another (Judd Nelson) who turned bad.

      • Rating: PG-13

      • Genre: Fantasy, Action, Adventure

      • Original Language: English

      • Director: Kenneth Johnson

      • Producer: Quincy Jones, David Salzman, Joel Simon

      • Release Date (Theaters):  wide

      • Release Date (Streaming):

      • Box Office (Gross USA): $1.7M

      • Runtime:

      • Distributor: Warner Bros.

      • Production Co: Warner Bros.

      • Sound Mix: Surround

      Cast & Crew

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      Critic Reviews for Steel

      Audience Reviews for Steel

      • Mar 20, 2020

        Steel is so far removed from the source material that I honestly feel like they could have made exactly the same movie, called it something else, and nobody would ever assume that it has anything to do with the DC Comics character. Oh also it sucks.

        Super Reviewer
      • Jun 06, 2013

        The most atrocious iteration of the Superman series, Steel is an abomination that everyone has since disowned. Shaquille O'Neal stars as John Henry Irons, a former U.S. Army weapons specialist who resigned after a training accident crippled his friend, but he becomes a vigilante after discovering that his weapons have found their way into the hands of L.A. street gangs. O'Neal's acting is beyond awful, and his co-stars are just as bad. The costumes and sets look cheap and cartoonishly stupid, and the music is abysmal. Steel is an appallingly bad film that is nearly unwatchable.

        Super Reviewer
      • May 18, 2012

        The Avengers not only broke expectations, but it?s making huge money (above a billion in two and half weeks) which is well earned when you make a great superhero movie. What happens when you do the opposite like putting a basketball player with no acting talent in an adaptation of an unknown DC Comic hero? You get a movie that almost singlehandedly killed the superhero genre. Steel is about John Henry Irons, played by Shaq, who develops weapons for the military and leaves when the military decides to use his weapons despite the danger. That summary in the last sentence is the closest you?ll have to a good story in this movie. There?s a lot missing from this mess of a superhero movie like excitement, drama, fun, and an actual superhero. Let me tell you one thing, Shaq is easily the most unimpressive superhero ever. Not only does he get knocked down most of the times when he?s fighting crime, but he pretty much useless as he doesn?t save a lot of people or do anything super. If there?s one thing I hate more than the boring script is that we actually see boring scenes like a very, very slow chase across even slower free trains where nothing exciting happens. What bad superhero movie is complete without truly awful dialogue like ?Eat the hot dog, don?t be one!?. Thankfully the movie mostly burrows lines from other movies which is still bad, but it?s better than any original dialogue Steel does have. One scene in particular stood out to me when Shaq character was visiting Susan Sparks (Annabeth Gish) with this ridiculous dialogue. John: (about her being crippled) I can imagine how you feel. Susan: No. No you can?t. John: You?re right. I can?t. Now to the movie credit it does make you laugh, though not often, when you hear awful dialogue and some funny bad acting. This is truly poor writing at its worst. Like what kind of evil mastermind would ever sell weapons with the help of an arcade manufacturer? What kind of criminals never shut up about robbing a bank while the robbery is airing on the news? Then come the character Martin (Ray J) who I honestly had no idea what he?s saying most of the time with lines like ?Now you need stud. Hey why you player hating? I got all kind of honey sweating meat?. I stop paying attention to Martin. One last thing I?m going to pick on is the climax when Shaq and Martin are thrown into a room and a henchman throws a grenade inside. The two performs an entire comedy routine which takes around ten seconds; grenades do not take that long to explode! Just from poor writing alone from this disaster is enough to kill the superhero genre. Unfortunately we also got actors in Steel. I want praise actress Annabeth Gish who provided the only good performance in this movie, unfortunately she also gets some poorly written dialogue to deliver. Now Annabeth Gish should have been the hero as she clearly has talents and a wheelchair that can shoot lasers which would make for a better time than watching Shaq getting knocked constantly. Other than Annabeth Gish being one of the few redeeming factors of the movie, everything is as bad as the writing. Shaq acting is especially bad; in one scene he has eyebrows spasm when picking up Sparks from the veteran hospital. Aside from bad acting from the entire cast, with the exception of Gish, production values are really horrendous. Shaq superhero costume is just plain ridiculous and the special effects are truly boring. One example is when Shaq very slowly zip line to the top of a building to run away from the police made me laugh. The music is just as unexciting as everything else in the movie. Almost everything in Steel is awful and it?s a miracle that Steel didn?t kill the superhero genre. Steel is a prime example demonstrating that not every superhero can make an easy transition to the big screen.

        Super Reviewer
      • May 04, 2011

        This movie was...Okay. It certainly wasn't good, but it wasn;t too bad either. Shaq can't act, no more than he can shoot a decent free throw, but there was still some good. But as always, we begin with the bad. The basketball puns in this movie were just PAINFUL PAINFUL PAINFUL!!! For example, there is one scene where Shaq has too shoot a grenade throw a hole in the wall with unlimited time and no one guarding him. GEE, I WONDER WHAT THAT MEANS. OUT OF ALL THE BASKETBALL PUNS, IT COULD BE ANY!!! Then there was the acting. Shaq, of course, was pretty bad, but the villain was pretty bad too. I also didn't like the acting of the annoying kid. Just attrocious. There was good though. The special affects in this movie had too be good to make up for the fact that Shaq played the main character, and they were. I felt like I was watching a Terminator film! Particulary the hammer. I lied the costume too, even if the entrance was a little dumb. The plot was pretty good too, for a Shaq movie. It's kind of like Iron Man, but I don't really want to explain it. This movie isn;t perfect, but it isn't horrible. In my opinion, it's smack dad in the middle.

        Super Reviewer

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