Point-by-Point: The Man with the Iron Fists - 4/10

We start in China at some unspecified-but-long-ago time. There's a gang that was taken over by a traitorous lieutenant, there's a rightful-but-out-of-power leader to said gang, there's a blacksmith, there's a madame and her prostitutes, there's a western badass, and there's a buttload of gold that they all are somehow involved with. A variety of things happen, but any plot is mainly an excuse for kung-fu action.

The Good: While none of the action is outstanding, the variety of characters and weapons is entertaining. I especially enjoyed Zin Yi's knife armor that would sprout blades wherever needed. The movie is ridiculous in a campy / throwback sort of way, and there are enough fun bits that you begin to think it would have been very possible to make a better movie than what they ended up with. Russell Crowe is fun to watch and seems to be having a good time, although he does end up making the rest of the cast look bad.

The Bad: RZA. He's a pretty mediocre director and an utterly horrible actor. Since this is his movie and he was the main character, that inevitably led to a crappy outcome. There are some interesting style choices, especially when it comes to music, but the movie begins to drag towards the end and some of the fight scenes rely on CGI gore instead of actual fight choreography. The story is a little thin, but you can chalk that up to the genre. Even with all of that, the movie could have been salvaged if RZA had picked someone better in the lead role instead of trying to do it himself. He doesn't have the acting chops to pull off the dramatic parts and looks downright silly during the action scenes. I don't know if he chose to be the main character because of ego or just because he thought it'd be fun, but he should have hired a real actor.

The Ugly: With all the gore in the unrated version, there are a lot of scenes to choose from. However, probably the ugliest was just how the Man with the Iron Fists comes by his name.

Points Pondered

-Were I Russell Crowe's character, I'd think about carrying an actual gun along with my knife gun.

-Mirrored battle rooms seem far more confusing in movies than they'd actually be in real life. If the average 8 year old can make their way through a hall of mirrors at a carnival, a trained martial artist can figure out where the bad guy actually is.

-Taking a 10 or 15 minute timeout to learn the Blacksmith's history was a bit much, but then watching the RZA try to fight people made the whole exercise laughable. If he doesn't fight like a badass, no amount of backstory will convince us.

-Knife Armor seems like a risky proposition, and would probably be a hassle to put on and take off. Still, pretty cool looking. 

Point-by-Point: The Frankenstein Theory - 4/10

A researcher finds out that his ancestor was the basis for Dr. Frankenstein. He thinks the monster is still alive, and he hires a documentary crew that accompanies him to the arctic circle to track the creature down. It goes about as well as you'd expect.

The Good: This is an interesting idea for a movie, and by framing it as a documentary, there's slightly higher production value than the average found-footage film. Also, the acting (save for the main character, sadly) is well above par for this kind of movie. They actually spent some money on real actors for the side characters - the meth head and the guide both did standout jobs. 

The Bad: Our hero Dr. Venkenheim veers a bit towards Gene Wilder in a supposedly serious film, and it doesn't quite work. But the main problem is this movie just doesn't deliver on it's promising premise. It's a very slow build up to an utterly underwhelming conclusion, and there's nary a startle along the way. 

The Ugly: The weather. I really hope they didn't drag the entire crew up to the arctic circle, but wherever they were looked miserably cold. Oh, and I guess you see a corpse that was ripped in two. But mainly the weather.

Points Pondered

-At first I was about to give the movie a 6, but then I realized I had just watched Greystone Park and in comparison everything looks like Shakespeare. Just because a movie isn't terrible doesn't make it good.

-Christine Lakin of Step by Step fame plays the doctor's girlfriend, which I only realized after I saw her name in the credits. I would say she should be in more stuff, but a quick check of her IMDb page shows she's in about 5-10 things a year. Might be time to raise her standards.

-There's absolutely nothing in the movie you don't see coming from miles away. Halfway in and most people could give you the order in which the cast is culled.

-Be warned - the cover is much cooler than anything you see in the movie.