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At the time of this writing, this film has three titles: Iron Invader, Iron Golem, and Metal Shifters (plural title, one creature - misleading). Aliases are usually used to disguise identity. Perhaps the hope was that consumers might mistakenly buy three titles expecting to see three different movies. Having written that, the film has several A-list Canadian sci-fi actors reacting to a well conceived CGI monster. Not a terrible way to spend 90 minutes.

This film is particularly interesting--and it's frankly an example of what happens when "big-budget" ideas are combined with the "low-budget" limitations of non-Hollywood films. The Invader is a great special effect, as it goes. Still, it's painfully reminiscent of a Transformer. The storyline is simple and straightforward, to the point of two-dimensional. One gets the feeling that the writers were all too aware of this, and sought to give it "heart" with the romance subplot. The leads are as good as they can be in their limited roles--particularly the lovely and superbly talented Nicole deBoer, of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and "The Dead Zone" fame. Miss deBoer does a pretty good job of taking her role--a typical "former love who's at first cold, but discovers she still has feelings for the lead"--and sprucing it up when she has the opportunity. Case in point: her great moment when a character notes to her that the only girl the hero's had a steady relationship with had been her. Nicole's reaction to the line is testament to her skills at developing the characters she plays. Still, once can't watch this film, and not be nostalgic for the beautiful performances we've seen her give elsewhere--it's painfully obvious she can still give them, were she given half a chance. The secondary characters are at times pretty cringe-inducing--one wonders if, had the filmmakers more time and money, they'd have hired better. Still, they were able to get Miss deBoer--though even she can't carry films on her own. That being said, a moment that makes the film, for sheer "camp" value, is when she runs up to the Invader with a bleeding arm (she cut it on purpose--watch the film to understand why) and in what looks like a direct homage to Tommy Lee Jones in "Men In Black", starts taunting it like mad. Her first taunt in the sequence is also an apparent homage to Robert de Niro in "Taxi Driver"--"SUCK ON THIS!!!" Finally...the montage sequence where the Invader is defeated is pretty cringe-inducing--not the concept, which was interesting, so much as the camera shots of quick extreme close ups of bottles pouring out. Sometimes, rapid montage works. When it doesn't, it makes the audience flinch at how gimmicky it is. This was the latter. Overall, the film was okay--but it could have been better.

METAL SHIFTERS is another low budget Canadian sci-fi oddity, this one happy enough to copy the likes of THE TERMINATOR and ROBOCOP. Some alien space bacteria comes to earth on a crashed satellite - courtesy of those pesky Russians and in a scene similar to THE BLOB - and has the ability to 'control' metal, shortly animating a random giant robot that just so happens to be hanging around in a scrapyard. What follows is a rampage of destruction. The problem with this film is that it's all very family friendly and therefore not at all menacing. I was pleasantly surprised by the calibre of the CGI effects work, which is not to be sniffed at, but otherwise the film is largely dull. Too much of it consists of people running around and the robot getting blown up before joining back together again, and I could do without the family dynamics of the plot. Plus there's the usual curse of badly-written characters acted by below-par TV stars, which makes this a less-than-entertaining experience.

The plot revolves around a bacteria from space which eats metal and has the power to animate said metal objects. The bacteria came from a satellite that crashed to earth and was sold for scrap by the central character, Jake, and his brother, Ethan. I know the summary written by IMDb editors says it was a meteorite, but it is identified early on that it's a satellite as Jake points out to his brother that parts of the wreckage have Russian writing on them (I guess the eds missed that). Anyway, the bacteria spreads to an 18 foot tall scrap metal 'Golem' figure which was built by the scrap yard owner as a display for some local event. The scrap metal giant then comes to life and proceeds to wander about the town (very slowly, mind you. Scrap metal can't walk very fast), killing everyone it comes into contact with. As said, it wasn't as bad as I expected. The sets were authentic looking and the acting passable. The main problem I had was with the camera work. In the scene where Jake meets his old love interest in a parking lot, it appears as if the cameraman has developed a sudden case of advanced Parkinson's disease. The camera shakes around so much, I was almost left feeling dizzy. I won't reveal the ending but let's just say that the movie's final message seemed to be that almost any problem can be overcome by applying copious amounts of alcohol. I give it 3/10.

Alien bacteria arrives on a meteorite and infects metal, animating a giant iron statue that goes on a killing rampage in a small town. I have few good things to say about this film -- I appreciate that Kavan Smith stars (though I can only picture hi mas "Deputy Andy") and I appreciate the references to the golem of Jewish mythology. But beyond that, I am unsure what to say. The film is bad, but coming from SyFy and Paul Ziller, I think everyone expects it to be bad. And then, because of this, it is not so bad. You can just open another beer and joke with your friends. I like to think that if these people would spend an extra week on the scripts and on the computer effects, they might actually be good. But who knows? Clearly excellence is not the goal.

Was this a cheesy and campy Sci-Fi movie? Well, let me answer that with a phrase used in the movie; "do bears crap in the woods?" This movie, given it is a SyFy Channel movie, wasn't particularly interesting. Why? Well, because it was built on a really lousy script, and the story was just too far out there. I mean, I can understand the aspect with a stellar bacteria making its way to Earth, but for it to use metal as a host and then mysteriously enough make a 17-foot tall golem become animated and hunt down people for the metals in their blood? Seriously? It was something right out of an old Sci-Fi movie from the 1960's. And if you enjoy those type of spaced out, campy Sci-Fi movies, then chances are that you will like "Iron Invader" as well. The story in the movie is about a bacteria that originates from outer space, crashing down to Earth on a Russian satellite. Two brothers collect the pieces and sell it for scrap metal. However, at the junk yard, the metal becomes animated by the bacteria and adheres itself to a golem that the local junk yard owner is putting together. The bacteria animates the golem and hunts down the towns people in order to extract the metals and minerals from their bloodstreams. Very stupid storyline if you ask me. If the bacteria needed metals and minerals, why didn't it just absorb it all from the metal found at the junk yard? And how can bacteria show signs of sentient thinking? Nah, this Sci-Fi movie was just a bit too spaced out and far fetched for me, and it was very hard to buy into the storyline. However, it should be said that the golem was actually decent enough to look at, nicely animated and the CGI effects weren't too shabby. However, don't go expecting blockbuster Hollywood effects here - because it ain't so. And the people on the cast list were doing fair enough jobs with what they had to work with. So at least that was working in favor of the movie as well. If you enjoy Sci-Fi movies there are far better choices available on the market. But, as I mentioned earlier, you might get a kick out of "Iron Invader" if you enjoy the old school type of campy, cheesy Sci-Fi movies.

A vast majority of the time, I intensely dislike SyFy's output, but there have also been some surprisingly tolerable if not great projects. Fortunately for Iron Invader, it falls into the latter category. The acting while not great is decent, likewise with the special effects with the Golem creature actually quite good, and the film with a somewhat intriguing concept starts off quite well. Sadly, the film loses it at the halfway mark, with the camera work becoming increasingly dizzying, the limited production values becoming more obvious and the pace becoming sluggish. While intriguing and starting off fine, the story is too thin to sustain the running time, the characters are rather shallow and the script is laughable in places. In conclusion, not good, not awful, just alright. 4/10 Bethany Cox