The worst film of 2020?
The Iron Mask
★★★★★
Dir Oleg Stepchenko
Starring Jason Flemyng, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan, Charles Dance, Anna Churina, Yao Xingtong
It would be overstating things a tad to say The Iron Mask is the worst thing to have come out of China in recent months, but even so, the mot juste here is yikes. This incoherent two-hour fantasy epic – a would-be blockbuster co-production in the vein of The Great Wall and The Meg – looks like an explosion in a computergenerated rubbish dump, and unfolds as if the plot is being relayed to you by a drunk on a night bus. Also, “incoherent two-hour fantasy epic” isn’t quite accurate: it’s more of an incoherent one-and-a-quarter-hour fantasy epic, plus an all-star warm-up.
The main portion of the plot features Jason Flemyng’s 18th-century mapmaker, Jonathan Green, journeying to the Far East along the old Silk Route with an exiled princess in disguise (Yao Xingtong), to overthrow a gang of Power Rangers baddies who have taken over a sacred tea plantation – but this is preceded by a basically unrelated 45-minute sequence in which Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan fight each other in the Tower of London.
International co-productions depend on internationally saleable names: The Great Wall had Matt Damon, and The Meg Jason Statham, who was apparently at one point also under consideration for a major role in this. So it makes sound business and entertainment sense that Arnie and Jackie turn up early on. In fact, Schwarzenegger is the first major actor to appear on screen: he strides on set in a red tunic and a tricorne hat – he plays the Tower’s head jailer – and delivers some laboured dad gags in an Austrian accent that doesn’t quite match up with his mouth movements. (Seemingly every line of dialogue in the film, including the English ones, has been awkwardly redubbed.)
Chan plays one of his category A prisoners – a mystical kung fu type who brings about a jailbreak – and the ensuing legend-on-legend combat feels like the coolest movie showdown of 1985 a quarter-century too late.
The two do have chemistry and the fight choreography is nifty, but the dialogue is dismal, with Schwarzenegger sadistically growling, “You will make a fine specimen in my collection,” when he and Chan come face to face. Um, what sort of prison is he supposed to be running here?
The submicron booby prize is drawn later on by Charles Dance, who plays Lord Dudley, the father of Flemyng’s love interest, and has to lend his Rsc-honed gravitas to the line: “Fight with me, Daniel, fight with me! Ooh, a pigeon.”
Flemyng’s role largely involves introducing himself then looking confused in front of a green screen, and there is a highly relatable moment where he is tied up outside the dragon’s cave and starts screaming “What in God’s name is happening?”
Having watched The Iron Mask stone-cold sober on a Wednesday afternoon, I couldn’t begin to tell you, though it did strike me as the kind of terrible film that might pass the time agreeably enough should the viewer find themselves in an advanced state of liquid-induced elation. To be clear, that doesn’t stop it being twaddle.