Iron Man's first up,
Wait, so you are telling me you're going to get Robert Downey, Jr. to play a talented, brilliant, substance-abusing, womanizing, jerk, who nevertheless is incredibly charming and has horrible impulse control? Wow, what a stretch (and bloody fantastic). . .
Downey sinks his teeth into the role, and then some, plus unlike most of the current crop of comic book superheroes turned movie franchises, Downey's Tony Stark embraces the role of superhero with gusto, ego, and charm. I don't know why all superheroes have to be whiny little [whiners] (insert stronger language in brackets, I'll leave it up to you, the reader, to decide the level of language with which to describe the depths of pussyfooting and whininess as portrayed by the Eric Banas, and Hugh Jackmans, and Tobey Maguires, and Christian Bales in their various 'tortured' superhero guises).
It's a fun film in all its aspects, from the origins of Iron Man, to his pursuit of a better suit, to the choice of main bad guy. It also largely eschews the usual liberal twaddle that could have easily scuttled a film like this. It's not all gung ho about military hardware, but they don't say that military hardware is bad, it's just bad when it falls into irresponsible and evil hands (and when corporations are willing to sell to the bad guys, which I know is needed for the plot, but none of our most advanced hardware has ever ended up in the hands of the kind of people they show Stark Industries equipment being used by, so while for the plot to work they did this, even though these events have never happened in real life, and never will, it gives the Hollywood execs a way to point to this film as not being a totally and unequivocally pro-US military picture, cause afterall, who would want to see that?).
All that said, there will be people on both sides of the political spectrum (and even those in the middle) who may not be comfortable with one aspect or another of the plot, but mostly this film is just a lot of fun, with solid (but not overused) effects, a great actor in the center of it (plus a strong supporting role by Jeff Bridges), and passable performances from the others in the cast (Gwyneth Paltrow doesn't completely suck the life out of her scenes, though she tries, and Terrence Howard as the love interest is OK as well), make this a winner.
Plus sit through the credits, you'll be rewarded.
(and I lied a bit about Howard playing the love interest, that would have been a little 'too' interesting, but his character definitely has a massive, and probably requited, mancrush on Tony Stark)
(and why does unrequited get so much more play then, requited, I guess when something is requited we tend to use 'mutual' instead, but I say requited makes sense to use in the positive if unrequited is used in the negative)
(OK, I think I'm done with parentheticals in the post now)
(I lied, one more, is it really all that surprising that Downey nailed the Stark role? I mean I pretty much laid it out in the red lettered blockquote above, right? I'm surprised that people are surprised, frankly)
UPDATE: Spoiler-filled (in the comment section), YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!!!
OK, first part of the update, Instapundit points to this Pajamas Media Review by Kyle Smith of the film that takes issue with the latter half of the picture, I can understand how the reviewer chose to see things the way he did, but I think he's just looking for a fight and found what he was looking for.
Now to the spoiler part, read the comment, I'll post my thoughts on that (spoiler-laced) review in the comments, so if you don't want to have the plot spoiled (not that there's all that much plot, really, and not that you don't see the developments a mile away, but still, some people like to go into a film unspoilt, so I'll go through the motions of keeping things that way for you), don't read the comment section to this post, but know that I can easily recommend this film, enjoyed watching it, look forward to the next installment in the series, and think that this film series could end up being the most fun of the current crop of comics turned films.
3 comments:
OK, on to the spoilers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (turn back now if spoilers bother you, otherwise, read away)
I allude to the plot device to have very high tech weapons end up in the hands of multi-ethnic Muslim terrorists in the main part of this post, but it deserves some fleshing out. That's the biggest clunker of the film, but given the way they structured the story, it's also needed to have a reason for Stark's anger, his reaction, and a foil for him to fight.
Our best stuff doesn't end up in our enemy's hands, and it's a major flaw in the story that they choose this route to go, but I don't think it's particularly anti-American, or a blame America first angle, it's more of a blame greedy white cigar chomping businessmen who look surprisingly awesome with their heads shaved bald (Jeff Bridges semi-unrecognizable, but plays the bad guy very well).
Our government would suspend all the contracts of a company like Stark Industries if they were double dealing in the manner shown, so again, it's a dumb plot device they trot out, but it's much more anti-business than anti-American, and while anti-business Hollywood claptrap is tiresome, it's also not a fatal flaw with this picture, or any reason to avoid it.
They could avoided that side of it by making the bad guy, Obadiah Stane (got to love those comic book names), solely responsible for the double dealing (and not the entirety of Stark Industries), but I think if the producers of this film didn't make some sort of sop to 'weapons/businessmen are bad' sort of liberal posturing, then they would have been sneered at while attending future cocktail parties.
Basically the usual anti-business tone is a result of the usual Hollywood cowardice, and not the usual Hollywood anti-Americanism, but the overall picture is solidly un-anti-military, which is a refreshing enough change from Hollywood to make this piece of well done fluff enjoyable and not an insult.
(of course, after seing the Hulk trailer, it looks like it has a similar story arc, Gov't wants the Hulk for its purposes, crazed soldier decides to become even Hulkier Hulk, hilarity ensues)
Pretty decent movie, though not as awesome as the trailer and the big showdown and ending was rushed and lacked emotional impact.
I sat through the credits and was unimpressed. I never read comic books, so it meant nothing to me.
My biggest mistake was going on a Friday evening when the theater was overrun by obnoxious, socially retarded teenagers. I hated teenagers when I was one and they're even more annoying now.
And the trailers...sucked.
Indiana Jones - looked uninspired and half-speed. I felt like booing.
Prince Caspian - no
The Happening - hey, I liked the village and even I'm getting tired of his act.
Step Brothers - fucking stupid
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