Iron Mask has everything a bad adventure film needs: overwritten story, sloppy direction, sloppier dialogue, seventeen production companies, wasted talent … and then it occurred to me – I’ve seen this kind of film before. And I used to love it. I loved it when animatronic skeletons came to life. I loved it when screen lightweights battled claymation monsters all over the Mediterranean. Iron Mask is essentially the same film as Jason and the Argonauts or The 7th Voyage of Sinbad; it’s just not quite as good, and I’m no longer eight-years-old.
First off, like any classic bad film, the movie follows the wrong people. Here, you have Jackie Chan and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the cast, and then film gives QT to Jason Flemyng, Yuri Kolokolnikov, and Xingtong Yao dressed as a boy. Seriously, there are two people in the cast capable of carrying a film, as they have done countless times between them, and you’ve given the movie to three who have proven no such thing among the trio, even once. But, hey, can you name the actor who played Jason, captain of the Argo? Neither can I.
Chan spends Iron Mask in chains with Schwarzenegger as his jailor. Master (Chan) is prison royalty and thus chained to Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, at the top of the Tower of London. Oh, did I mention this is a period piece? Yeah, get a load of Schwarzenegger cosplaying as if he’s in Pirates of the Caribbean. To the movie’s credit, Iron Mask did set up a fight between Chan and Schwarzenegger when the tower folks try to escape. To the film’s discredit, Tsar
Peter (Kolokolnikov) escapes and Chan does not.
Meanwhile, in another film, Jason Flemyng is a cartographer headed to China after escaping from a Russian prison. Boy this film loves barbaric prisons, huh? To guide the way, he’s acquired a Chinese princess of dragons (Xingtong Yao) and weird flying monkey beast. Oh, and did I mention this film is actually Russian/Chinese? Yeah, it’s about a magical dragon that creates all the tea in China and there’s a war over dragon control. Naturally, the dragon princess ends up dressed as a boy and imprisoned in a Moscow thug jail. This all makes sense, right? No? Well, try not to think about it. The adventure is the point.
And the adventure is every cast member -less Chan and Schwarzenegger- descending on a Chinese stronghold for the battle for all the tea in China. This really isn’t a good film, and it’s savage to leave the biggest stars out of the biggest fight, but Iron Mask did remind me a great deal of younger days of Claymation and Red Vines, and on that score, I’m going to be a lot kinder to it than I ought to be. I cannot recommend Iron Mask, but, truthfully, I wasn’t bored with the inanity. Take the win non-loss, Iron Mask; you’ll get no better anywhere.
A throwback to vivid childhood day
With the adventures my TV did display
But if the plot is inane
And the writing arcane
I’d rather the monsters were made of clay
Rated PG-13, 120 Minutes
Director: Oleg Stepchenko
Writer: Dmitry Paltsev, Alexey A. Petrukhin, Oleg Stepchenko
Genre: Claymation minus claymation
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Eight-year-old me
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People hoping for more from Chan and Schwarzenegger
