Out of all the characters you could have picked for making a movie, Iron Man would be the last one I would have thought of. Out of all the actors to play Tony Stark, Robert Downy would have been…Actually, he wouldn’t have made the list. I just didn’t see it.
When I saw the trailers for the movie several month ago, I got a slow rolling hate for it. I was READY to slam this movie, you dig? I rehearsed one-liners. I invented metaphors. My Robert Downy jokes went on for 27 pages on legal-sized paper.
As far as I was concerned, Marvel had buried itself over the past few years and it was time I nailed the coffin shut. Of course, with Marvel’s recent descent into madness, losing sight of what made them great and settling for boilerplate CGI, I had no doubts this would further my cause that Hollywood has no business dipping it’s grubby paws into the comic book world. Witness the last string of failures from the grist mill; Spiderman 3 (or "Days of Our Lives, with a spider costume") X-Men 3, The Godawful Elektra, The Christawful Daredevil, The Incredibly Fecal Hulk, and of course my all-time favorite loser, Ghost Rider. Which, just so we are clear, was my all-time favorite comic book. X-Men 3 director Brett Ratner should never be allowed near a fucking camera (or cinema) ever again in his life. Ghost Rider director Mark Steven Johnson just needs to be taken out behind the chemical sheds and shot, period. (And before anyone decides to jump my shit for suggesting someone be shot again, watch Ghost Rider first. Then I’ll entertain anything you have to say.)
There are some people who know how to film comics right, though, Robert Rodriguez and Zack Snyder being first among them (although I HATED Snyder’s “Dawn of the Dead” remake, but he seems to have learned from his mistakes…He’s doing “Watchmen” next year!)
With that said…Iron Man rocks. Robert Downy pulls off the enigmatic Tony Stark/Iron Man personae with style, and refrains from making it over-quirky with that twitchy kitsch he’s so famous for. I mean, when an actor can restrain himself from using his one gimmick in a lead role, and reach down for something a little better, it’s practically unheard-of. To see Robert Downy pull a stunt like this…You almost want to send him to his room with no dessert, except he brings us something ELSE so well. We always knew he had talent, and if he ever decided to put down the hash pipe for five seconds he might just show some.
Holy fried brain cells Erection Boy, he actually did it!
Iron Man is, for the most part, the mythos and origins of the comic book hero put together with some modern-day upgrades for realism (In the comics, Tony Stark creates Iron Man during the Vietnam war. Whoops, sorry, we don’t care about the spread of communism anymore. Now it’s Islam!!) There are some typical middle-eastern stereotypes in this movie, but if you can look past that you won’t trip on anything else unexpectedly. Also, they never come out and tell you exactly WHERE it is Tony Stark as captured at…Probably because the landscape is changing so much by the time this thing gets to DVD it will probably be a waterslide park or something.
The CGI isn’t overdone, and Robert Downy brings something to his voice-over character that Nick Cage couldn’t do on his best day: Believability. It’s easy to buy Downy’s Stark, because he never drifts too far to the left or right of morality, even after he has his life changing experience. He still makes mistakes. He still shoots himself in the foot. He doesn’t develop some overblown sense of justice. He’s a man with an idea, sort of fleshing it out as he goes.
Iron Man has been started, shelved, scrapped and resurrected for about 8 years now, with several studios trying to nail it down. But Marvel ultimately decided to film the entire thing as an independent flick (suck that,
I won’t go into much more of the plot, it’s heavy-action with solid writing. Not flawless, but strong. There were so many places this movie could have gone terribly wrong at, I counted about 700 points of failure. This movie could have been Ghost Rider 2, under the right circumstances.
Instead, it’s
Welcome back, Marvel.
8 comments:
Bobbe I agree..it rocked. Ironman will make an appearance in the new HULK flik as well. Did you stay around after the credits? if not you missed a big surprise....I won't ruin it for you though...but it was a huge surprise for comic flick fans.
OMG NO!!!
I wanted to, but I was with Christian Boy, and he was all like, "I have to get home so I can witness to the orphan kids down the street".
So we left early. Dammit all anyway...
Whatever.
Who was it that borrowed my cell phone 3 different times to call home? So concerned that the wife was gonna kick their ass.
Oh ya, that was you.
Well, of course I had to. MY wife wouldn't have left me alone for weeks with only a jar of olives to keep me busy.
But hey, they say Jesus did quite a bit on the Mt. of Olives, so there may be hope for you after all.
I have tickets to see this at the main dome at the Arclight. Basically when I can find the time me and two buddies get to see this on a HUGE screen.
I just need to dodge bullets because the movie theater is in Hollywood.
Iron Man was the first comic I started to collect, so I was really nervous to see how bad it could be. I too was really impressed, but I feel the teaser at the very end of the credits could go very badly, we'll see about that.
Ironman rocked!
I found the stereotypical middle eastern badguy offensive, especially considering what's going on Over There today, but that ended up not being the major plot anyway, so...
I found the fundamental plot of the post-origin part of the movie (talking carefully around spoiler points) extremely ironic in how it contradicts the original storyline.
Then again, maybe they're setting up a big twist for a later movie, since they apparently have four or five more movies in the works, and Marvel does know how to tell a story... One can hope.
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