Kindness is the new punk rock. That’s the message of Superman , James Gunn ‘s universally-loved, big budget 2025 film about the Man of Steel. But decades earlier, a much less-loved, much cheaper, Superman-adjacent movie came to the same conclusion. And while it was mocked at the time, that film managed to marry the message to a tone that’s all the more valuable today.

Nothing demonstrates that sense of wholesomeness like the way the hero reveals himself in the 1997 Shaquille O’Neal vehicle Steel . Midway through the film, a rich couple gets mugged by a street tough (a shocking pre- Deadwood John Hawkes) and runs off to examine his ill-gotten gains. But as soon as he finds an allyway filled with steaming pipes and empty boxes to hide away, the mugger hears a voice, promising th

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