STEEL is for almost everyone a dreadful movie. On IMDB it has a score of 2,8 and few months ago, when it reached 10,000 ratings, it ended in the Bottom 100 (the list of the 100 lowest rated major releases according to users' ratings). Unfortunately, I am not the typical viewer, since when I saw it when it was 32 ratings shy I gave it a try, but I didn't ended up hating the movie. In reverse, I ended up enjoying it very much and I personally couldn't believe all the hate that surrounded this movie for years.

The movie begins with John Henry Irons (Shaquille O'Neal) that is in the Army and he is trying a super-powerful cannon. A fellow serviceman, Nathaniel Burke (Judd Nelson) set the cannon at the maximum power and there is a horrible accident that destroys a entire building and cripples Irons' friend Sparky (Annabeth Gish). Nathaniel is of course expelled from the Army and Irons returns home to his grandma.

Later there is a street gang that robs a bank using the weapons with Burke and Irons' technology. Irons realizes that Burke is dealing with all the weapons smugglers and dealers for letting people using his dangerous weapons everywhere. So it's up to Irons, Sparky and Uncle Joe (Richard Roundtree) to stop Burke. And so Irons creates a steel (for some looks like made of rubber) suit and a huge hammer/weapon and goes out at night to fight crime and, as everyone would expect, he succedds in defeating Burke.

So why I didn't hated the movie? Well, the plot in my opinion gives a message like ''don't never give up in defeating your enemy, because the day of revenge will come sooner or later''. And I found the soundtrack pretty cool since it gives a nice and nostalgic 90s feel. Despite Shaquille O'Neal is a bit one-note in his performance (and he was even nominated for a Razzie for Worst Actor the following year) and he looks like the largest sardine can ever made with that steel suit, I have to admit it, he was much better than in KAZAAM (his other leading man movie). About the only thing I would agree with most of the reviewers is that the special effects look a bit dated even for 1997 standards, but at the end, for me it wasn't a problem. If this movie would have been made with the same budget of movies like THE AVENGERS or IRON MAN then I would have hated it, but since the budget wasn't that huge the movie was adequate.

Don't be afraid to buck conventional wisdom, because I think that there are some that might enjoy this movie just like I did, and trust me, there are much WORSE movies out there!

Oh man, I don't believe this. Perhaps with the exception of "Barb Wire", I don't think I have watched anything that comes anywhere near this. When I come to think of it, "Barb Wire" is actually better than this, because I could laugh while watching it. This film is so bad it reaches a certain quality of lousiness only reserved for the very worst of bad ideas. I mean - Shaquille O'Niell in a steel suit with a super weapon made from the contents of a lost-and-found at the scrap yard? Please!

"Steel" is, by accounts, a bad movie. It's IMDB score is currently an appalling 2.8 and it was on IMDB's infamous Bottom 100 List until recently. Why is it no longer on the list? Well, the new standards say that a movie must have 10,000 votes to be eligible for this list of worst-rated films...and "Steel" is 103 votes shy...meaning it may just be on the list in the near future if it can get more votes....and would rest about #22 on the list. And, incidentally, Shaquille O'Neal was nominated for the worst actor Razzie for this performance. So why did I watch it? I have a weird passion...to see all 100 on the list...because many are simply hilarious and aren't intended to be! So is "Steel" as bad as its score would indicate? No. Now it is NOT a good film....but I can think of hundreds of worse movies. Certainly NOT a ringing endorsement!

When the film begins, John Henry Irons (Shaquille O'Neal) is in the army and there is a test of a new super-weapon. The baddie in the film, Nathaniel Burke (Judd Nelson),did not listen to John's instructions and there's an awful accident. Nathaniel is rightfully tossed from the service and John quits because he wants to work on weapons that neutralize the enemy...not kill them.

Skip ahead a bit of time and suddenly an LA gang is using a weapon based on the technology that John and Nathaniel developed. John realized that Nathaniel must have gone evil and is about to make a killing selling these dangerous weapons to the highest bidders. So, it's up to John to create his own super tools--with not only a high powered neutralizing gun but a steel suit to protect him from Nathaniel's evil weapons.

So is it terrible? No. It's not good...but not terrible. O'Neal is a bit wooden, I admit it, but he also is pretty cute in his scenes with his grandma....and I think the film would have been better with more of these sorts of scenes. The plot is a bit silly and in many ways, the film comes off like merging "Iron Man" (with O'Neal being a brilliant inventor and superhero like Tony Stark) and "Sanford and Son", as John's hideout is in a junk yard and his costume, in part, is made from junk. The bottom line is that the film isn't much fun BUT it didn't seem awful or painful to watch...which disappointed me because I was hoping the film would totally embarrass O'Neal.