TombRaider09

Calling a movie just awful might seem uninspiring and unoriginal, but "Man-Thing" hardly deserves any originality from its reviews. The movie is, just awful, period. No horror or even jump scares are to be found in this atrociously banal comic book adaption about a vengeful swamp monster who kills people and stuff.

Although the plot is really not the point in this film (though I sincerely doubt the film has a point at all in any department), a new sheriff (Le Nevez, who makes Hayden Christensen look like a character actor) arrives to a small Lousiana town to replace the missing sheriff, amidst an influx of missing persons cases. Peculiarly, they have all gone missing in the swamp, where an oil company has just recently started drilling oil on sacred Indian land. The rest of this predictable and dull plot consists of an odd assortment of people running aimlessly around the swamp getting themselves impaled by the Man-Thing that looks strangely a lot like big tree, only less terrifying and a lot clumsier (how you can move less gracefully than a non-moving object is itself an achievement). Why anyone would be terrified of this thing is perhaps the biggest - and only - mystery the story has to offer.

While this unfunny, non-scary bore-fest may not be nothing more than a waste of your precious moments on Earth, the film did propel Alex O'Loughlin and Rachael Taylor, both Australians (where the movie was filmed) into acting careers in Hollywood, with O'Loughlin starring on CBS's "Moonlight" and "Hawaii 5-0" and Taylor landing roles on ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" and "Charlie's Angels". Call it a silver lining if you wish.