Shaquille O'neal In `Steel': Acting Still Doesn't Suit Him

Movie review XX "Steel," with Shaquille O'Neal, Judd Nelson, Annabeth Gish, Richard Roundtree. Written and directed by Kenneth Johnson. Auburn Cinema 17, Aurora, East Valley 13, Everett Mall 4-10, Gateway, Grand Cinemas, Issaquah 9, Meridian 16, Parkway Plaza, Puyallup 6, Snohomish, Totem Lake. 105 minutes. "PG-13" - Parental guidance suggested for profanity, violence.

Well-intentioned but hulky and lumbering, "Steel" falls somewhere between the cacophony of "Batman & Robin" and the tepid Robert Townsend vehicle "Meteor Man." With a size-22 shoe, it just keeps stepping on its own feet.

Shaquille O'Neal is the one filling out those long boats, and his acting prowess hasn't improved much since last year's can't-wish-it-away "Kazaam!"

O'Neal plays John Henry Irons, a military metallurgist who, along with his cohort, Lt. Sparks (Annabeth Gish), has created a range of new weaponry that pulses with electro-something-or-others and uses sonic what's-its to knock things down and blow things up. When dastardly Nathaniel Burke (Judd Nelson) fiddles around with one of the weapons, it ends up paralyzing Sparks and causing Irons to walk away from a military career (just like David Robinson).

Irons doesn't join the NBA, however; he goes back to L.A. to work in a steel factory and get back to his family. One night he encounters a street gang equipped with the very weapons he and Sparks had built, and he realizes that Burke is testing them out so he can sell them on the black market. After liberating Sparks from a veterans hospital and getting together with his Uncle Joe (Richard Roundtree), Irons suits up to become Steel.

As Steel, Irons looks like the Michelin Man after a visit to a customizing shop, but Steel also has a bunch of gadgetry that Sparks has invented for him. With Uncle Joe and the wheelchair-bound Sparks, Steel takes on Burke and the nasty video-game/weapons dealers who back him.

"Steel" is a rather politically correct vehicle, and with its positive anti-gang stance, it seems more like a public-service announcement than a movie. Gish does the best job on the set, although Richard Roundtree is also a welcome sight.

Backed by a "Starsky and Hutch meets the A-Team" score, the action is pretty ho-hum. It does show people getting shot, but without the gore and panic of "Batman & Robin." Steel even returns wallets, saying, "On behalf of the citizens of L.A., I'd like to apologize." The film might be worth a ticket just to hear that phrase alone.