iron lung sucks
markiplier's directorial debut, iron lung, is based off a game of the same name by david szymanski. although conceptually appealing, markiplier bites off more than he can chew in this two-hour-and-seven-minute-long movie.
while visually stunning and positively gross, markiplier tries to do too much in his two hour time frame, but it all falls flat. for example, simon, the main character of the film - and the one we spend the most time with (he is literally the only character for like 99% of the film), is a convicted criminal of space terrorism. throughout the movie, there are multiple references made to a filament station (it could also be fillmore station - i wasn't really sure) that simon had some part in destroying, costing the lives of about sixty people. through limited flashbacks, we get barely begin to scratch the surface on what happened in simon's past - which left me wanting more, and then it's not really explained what happened to filament/fillmore station other than 'it blew up.' which, to say the least is.... dissatisfying.
iron lung also tries to explore themes of survival, how prisoners are treated in certain societies, and existential dread. in the film, simon continually begs ava, the captain of the mission, to let him out - however she simply argues that "this is bigger than any of us," which is true, if we got more explanation on what exactly happened other than 'the stars all died' and something about the quiet rapture. it could've also opened up a unique narrative for how we punish criminals - how we, often in western society, see them as lesser than us, the non-convicted. additionally, the themes of existential dread and survival are consistently shown throughout iron lung, but feel damn near shallow and barely scratch the surface. if i wanted to watch a shitty sci-fi horror movie about existential dread, i could've saved $29 and found a movie off youtube for free.
the acting was pretty okay, it wasn't oscar-nominee worthy but i wasn't upset with it. the writing, however, was a tad confusing. the dialogue felt repetitive at points and bored the living shit out of me. i saw iron lung with my friend, izzy, who claimed it to be the best movie of 2026, in part due to the writing. however, i found the writing and some scene set up to be confusing, reading the plot over and over again just to make sure i understood what happened after the film. there's a scene where simon hallucinates speaking to God/some random woman who was also sent on this death mission and it's, again, not really explained that well as to what's happening.
honestly, my biggest problem with this movie is that not much is explained in a lot of detail. why is simon here? how was simon picked for this mission? what happened to humanity? these are all questions i had while watching the film, and almost none of them were answered.