Talking Shit About Movies - Iron Man
The summer blockbuster season is finally upon us, and I could really care less. I can’t remember the last “summer blockbuster” that I went to the theater and enjoyed. While I did develop an odd love for Transformers, a big beautiful pile of stinking garbage, I didn’t watch it at the movies. I can’t even remember any other big deal movies that came out in summer. The first Spiderman was aight. I’m a big fan of Men In Black (Heyyyy, girlfriend!). But for the most part I just find your average run of the mill summer blockbuster a pointless exercise in how to entertain sheep.
That being said, I was fucking pumped to see Iron Man. As much as the superhero genre has burned us in the past, there has also been a smattering of good superhero movies (well, Batman Begins was bad ass, anyway). What would Hollywood do with Iron Man, a pretty cool, though not really first tier (Superman, Spider Man, Batman), superhero? Robert Downey, Jr., you say? Do go on. Mikey from Swingers directing? You had me at Downey…
The buzz for Iron Man reached deafening levels in the weeks up to the film’s release. At that point I had seen something like four different trailers and scads of screenshots. I had officially gotten myself excited to see a summer blockbuster superhero movie with a recovering addict as the superhero lead.
And Iron Man didn’t disappoint.
The movie starts off with a bang, but don’t expect your usual, non-stop butt-whippery of other superhero genre films. Iron Man actually gets into who Tony Stark is. Not only why he creates the suit, which you’ll see is genius born from necessity, but his obsession with the suit, and most importantly, why he stays in the suit. Stark isn’t just some bozo with dreams of saving the girl and being somebody. He’s already one of the richest men in the world with all the toys and snatch anyone could ask for. He’s not the same guy he was fifteen minutes before at any point of the movie, which is a mean feat for any Hollywood movie these days, but especially so for a superhero movie.
The action scenes are pretty spectacular from the beginning scene in the wilds of Afghanistan to the climactic final battle. A big plus is that there really aren’t any of those stupid “no effing way” parts like in most big ticket movies (keeping in mind that this is a superhero movie based on the premise that this guy has a metal suit that he can fly in powered by technology that doesn’t exist). Nothing like that retarded scene in Live Free or Die Hard where Bruce Willis shoots the car up the toll plaza curb into the helicopter. That was fucking horseshit. The suit looks amazing, too. Even though you know it’s CGI it still looks fairly real.
I think Robert Downey Jr. did a fantastic job as Tony Stark. His natural puckishness really lent itself to Stark’s brash smartass persona. I’m glad for Downey, he’s a great actor that’s really starting to get some good roles again (loved Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, too). Hopefully this will help keep him on screens for some time to come. Gwyneth Paltrow did a capable job as Stark’s assistant Pepper Potts (oh yeah, good comic book name). And El Duderino was very memorable in his turn as the bald a-hole partner Obadiah Stane. I’d probably be an asshole if my name was Obadiah Stane, too.
All in all, I’d say you could do a whole heck of a lot worse with your movie-going bucks than Iron Man. It really kept me entertained the whole time and passed the “I really need to go to the bathroom, but I don’t want to miss anything” test. Jon Favreau did a good job of making it visually appealing and gave us some good vroom vroom time with fast cars and really awesome looking weapon shots and explosions. My only real complaint is that they saved Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” until the closing credits. Come on, wouldn’t it have been bad ass to have him do his thing to some “Iron Man”? On second thought, it probably would’ve been cliché. Never mind. But if you haven’t seen it yet, go see that shit. You’ll have a good time, laugh a few times, and maybe even cheer a little bit. It’s no Larry the Cable Guy – Health Inspector, but what is, really?