Almost. In 2005, one last low-budget Marvel film managed to sneak out past the quality control in the form of "Man-Thing". It was made by Lionsgate, the same company who did the "Punisher" remake starring Thomas Jane a year before, and was pretty much only ever intended as a straight-to-video release anyway but the production was fraught with difficulties due to it being shot in Australia leading Marvel to fall out with Lionsgate and to bring the rights for the characters they'd originally given to them (as well as Man-Thing and Punisher, Lionsgate were planning films based around Iron Fist and Black Widow but these never got off the ground) back in house. The film slipped on out the Sci-Fi Channel to very little fanfare and was pretty much swept under the carpet afterwards with Marvel vowing that they'd be much stricter who they gave the film rights to their characters to afterwards. Let's have a look and see what all the (non-)fuss was about...
The story begins with a young sheriff, Kyle Williams, being transferred from New York to the backwater town of Bywater in the Florida Everglades. Within a few hours of arriving he quickly realises that all is not what it seems here as the body of Billy, a local teenager, turns up at the morgue with horrific wounds. We actually see Billy and his girlfriend Sarah (former Aussie glamour model Imogen Bailey who is pretty much the only person in the cast whose name I even vaguely recognise) in the film's intro sneaking off from a party into the swamp at the edge of the town to have a quick bout of nookie in a canoe which is where the Man-Thing appears and gets Billy. Sarah survives but, as we see later in the film, has been driven mad by the experience.
Williams and his deputy Fraser don't have much time to dwell on things, however, as they're called away to a disturbance at the new oil refinery built on the edge of the swamp near the town where a group of protesters have chained themselves to the diggers claiming that the plant is being built on sacred Indian grounds. The plant owner Fred Schist and his son Jake turn up and explain that they've not broken any laws by building the refinery so Williams and Fraser attempt to break up the protest peacefully. However, one of the protesters, a schoolteacher called Teri Richards, kicks Fraser in the love spuds when he moves in to arrest her sending him sprawling into a puddle leading her to be arrested.
Kyle interviews Teri at the station where she explains that the Schists bought the plant from the local Seminole Native American tribe led by chieftain Ted Sallis (who disappeared shortly afterwards - a change from the comics where Sallis was a local scientist who injected himself with what he thought was a Captain America style super serum but basically turned him into a big shambling half-man half-plant being) and his second-in-command Renee Laroque who has fled into the swamp and is living there as a fugitive and ever since then, strange things have been afoot with bodies showing up left, right and centre in the swamp (backed up by Fraser who's had to pick up most of the bodies), most of which have plants growing out of them. Williams releases her without charge and over the next few days becomes acquainted with some of the local characters in the town including photographer Dave Ploog who's been trying to photograph the Man-Thing for weeks, shaman Pete Horn who's taken over from Sallis since his disappearance and local redneck gator trappers Wayne and Rodney Thibadeux who we later find out are working as the Schists' hired goons.
After the murder of one of Schist's security guards by the Man-Thing (again, discovered with a tree growing out of his body) and the discovery of the previous sheriff's body in the swamp with all four of his limbs hacked off, Williams and Fraser decide to set off into the swamp to track down Laroque to see what he knows about these events. However, the Thibadeux brothers are also dispatched by Jake with instructions to murder Laroque and make it look like an accident. En route though the Swamp Thing intercepts them and offs them both.
Williams and Fraser arrive at Laroque's house but nobody's home. Williams goes across the swamp to look for him while Fraser notices Ploog out trying to get a photo of the Man-Thing and goes to find him. Williams eventually ends up getting caught in a trap of Laroque's and the pair talk with Laroque explaining that he helped Schist to buy the lands but Sallis was against the sale. As a result, Schist murdered Sallis and dumped his body in the swamp where he has since been reborn as the Man-Thing. Only when the Schists are driven from the swamp will the killings stop which is what Laroque is currently trying to do.
Williams eventually frees himself and sees Fraser across a clearing but before they can talk the Man-Thing appears and kills Fraser by impaling him on some branches. Williams is woken up by Ploog who managed to take some very blurry photos of the Man-Thing. Angered, Williams tells him to stay away from the swamp.
The next day Kyle goes to interview both Pete Horn and Fred Schist with Teri tagging along for the ride. Horn tells him more about the Native American mythology surrounding the grounds before setting off into the swamp himself to "put an end to things" after Kyle and Teri have gone. Schist meanwhile turns decidedly unfriendly when Kyle asks him about Sallis and advises him to keep out of his business if he knows what's good for him. Oh yeah, also Kyle and Teri suddenly become a couple at this point with no preamble at all. Good old plotholes eh?
The net result of this is that everybody heads into the swamp that evening to try and sort things out - Horn believes that sacrificing himself to the Man-Thing will stop its rampage (he does and it doesn't), Laroque heads in to blow up the oil well, the Schists also head there to kill Laroque and Williams goes in to try and get some answers and hopefully keep some law and order. Teri stays back at the office but gets a message from the coroner at the morgue that an autopsy on the previous sheriff shows that he was actually killed by a bullet from Schist. So obviously she decides to head into the swamp to warn Kyle because, y'know, that message is worth putting yourself in mortal danger for when you could just call the guy on his mobile or similar.
Kyle encounters Ploog in the swamp aiming to get more photos of the Man-Thing but soon afterwards, the cameraman makes the mistake of disturbing the Schists who think he's the Man-Thing and shoot him dead. They then split up with Jake running into Laroque who bludgeons him to death with the blunt end of his machine gun!
Kyle meets up with Teri and she offers to take him to the burial ground (helpful only letting on now that she knew the way there!) but they're pursued by the Man-Thing the whole way. Upon arriving at the site they witness a confrontation between Fred Schist and Laroque with Schist shooting and wounding both Williams and Laroque before the Man-Thing turns up and kills him by pumping his body full of oil!
Kyle and Teri desperately try to fight the creature off but bullets don't hurt it and it's only destroyed when Laroque blows up the oil rig (with himself still on it) setting the creature on fire and then returning it back to the depths of the swamp. Kyle and Teri just sort of leave and that's the end of the film. No aftermath scene, nothing, finito.
It's not really any surprise that Marvel were so quick to disown "Man-Thing" as it isn't a good film by any stretch of the imagination. Its one saving grace is that it's actually very well shot with some great "Blair Witch Project" style atmospheric effects and cinematography but the characters are very poorly defined so you just don't really end up feeling any connection to any of them which just makes the whole thing a bit dull and it quickly becomes a "monster in the swamp" film by numbers. The whole thing just passes in an hour and a half without you really feeling anything which is arguably worse than it being a watch-through-your-fingers-terrible film. Unsurprisingly although the film rights for the character have now reverted back to Marvel's ownership, there haven't been any attempts to resurrect it for either a film or series. On this evidence, it's difficult to see that changing any time soon. To be honest, probably the nicest thing I can think to say about it is at least it isn't quite as bad as DC's "The Return of Swamp Thing"...
FINAL RATING: 👾👾👾 (3/10)
CURRENT MARVEL FILM TABLE
1. Spiderman 2 (2004) (9/10)
2. Spiderman (2002) (9/10)
3. X-Men 2 (2002) (8/10)
4. Men In Black (1997) (8/10)
5. X-Men (2000) (8/10)
6. Blade 2 (2001) (7/10)
7. Blade (1998) (7/10)
8. The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988) (6/10)
9. The Punisher (2004) (6/10)
10. Conan The Barbarian (1982) (6/10)
11. Elektra (2005) (6/10)
12. Conan The Destroyer (1984) (6/10)
13. The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk (1989) (6/10)
14. Blade Trinity (2004) (6/10)
15. Men In Black 2 (2000) (6/10)
16. The Incredible Hulk (1977) (5/10)
17. Doctor Mordrid (1992) (5/10)
18. The Punisher (1989) (5/10)
19. Doctor Strange (1978) (5/10)
20. Nick Fury: Agent Of SHIELD (1998) (4/10)
21. The Fantastic Four (1994) (4/10)
22. Hulk (2003) (4/10)
23. Red Sonja (1985) (4/10)
24. Captain America 2: Death Too Soon (1979) (4/10)
25. Spiderman (1977) (4/10)
26. The Death Of The Incredible Hulk (1990) (3/10)
27. Man-Thing (2005) (3/10)
28. Spiderman: The Dragon's Challenge (1979) (3/10)
29. Howard The Duck (1986) (2/10)
30. Captain America (1990) (2/10)
31. Captain America (1979) (2/10)
32. Generation X (1996) (2/10)
33. Spiderman Strikes Back (1978) (2/10)
34. Daredevil (2003) (2/10)
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