Steel

Shaq can't act, but the big galoot charms his way through this DC Comics series turned flick. Typecast as a superhero again, he's aided this time by a suit of armor and high-tech weapons rather than magic (as in his last, unspeakably bad cinematic turn, Shazzam!). O'Neal plays a peacenik Army metallurgist whose conflict with a baddie weapons expert (a predictably amoral Judd Nelson) tumbles into civilian life and the streets of gang-troubled Los Angeles. Our man saves the day with the help of Annabeth Gish as his beautiful-but-wheelchair-bound sidekick Sparky and Richard Roundtree as sharpie junkyard operator Uncle Joe. Ultimately, it's a fable of strength through friendship in the face of adversity, told with swashbuckling comic-book simplicity. At the Showcase and Tri-Boro cinemas.

-- Ted Drozdowski