Here’s something new, as we take a look at something attracting a fair amount of buzz—a film spawned by a star produced by that latest frontier of popular media, the internet. Or more specifically, Youtube—some might scoff, but at the same time, there were those who scoffed at this radio fad and the silliness of people gaining fame and fortune by just goofing off into a microphone. And furthermore, we have a film adapting a videogame—now with the track record of such productions, there’s much more room to start raising an eyebrow. So, with these factors, how does Iron Lung turn out?
Our film is directed by and stars one Mark Fischbach, aka Markiplier…who I’ve never watched, so be assured there’s no fanboy favoritism at play here (hell, I’m only dimly aware of what’s now popular with the kids on everyone’s clickbait-clogged video platform now!). We also have the involvement of David Szymanski, an indie game developer who conceived the original project of exploring a twisted ocean in the titular claustrophobic submarine—at the least, then, we have the ingredients of an actual passion project than just slapping on a popular title for yet another glitzy flop.
With a low budget, our tone and setting are established appropriately—it’s a bleak future where stars and planets are vanishing into the blackness for an unknown reason, with humanity reduced to stragglers desperately looking for any hope of survival. Fischbach himself plays a convict sealed into a rusted old submarine dipped into an ocean of blood to seek out said hopes, whatever they may be—with it being ambiguous as to whether his mission control even expects him to return.
All things considered Fishbach turns in a decently intense performance—hey, having to keep up an act for hours on end in front of a webcam sounds like training enough for that, right? For most of the film, we’re stuck in one set—and while those sorts of things can work, you do need constant evolution of character, setting, and story to make it interesting. And that, it does—we have tidbits flow in of the wider world, enough glimpses beyond the leaky sub to tantalize us, and enough teased just around the corner to make one continue watching.
Some people complained about a slow start—I thought it was fine, though I do like me some solid establishing of atmosphere and all that good stuff. However, a more valid point is sound mixing at times—I wasn’t sure at times if Fischbach was mumbling or whether it was how things were recorded, but it could’ve been done a little better there.
As things go on we get introduced into something far more cosmic than just the question of finding resources, which I enjoyed—the nausea gets ramped up at the end to perhaps go a little overboard, but at the same time let’s just say one also has to respect our lead for what he no doubt had to go through!
All in all, that leaves Iron Lung a bit rough around the edges but still an interesting enough and enjoyable little piece, which seemed to take the box office by surprise here as theaters ended up having to call it back in—it’s nice enough to see that in this world of the movie biz playing it safe and streaming platforms cancelling anything that’s not a giga-hit, that a personal project helmed largely by a singular guy can still succeed on word of mouth. Perhaps it’ll pave the way for others, perhaps for maybe half-assed cheap wannabes—either way, chalk this one up for a success at crossing mediums…
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