Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Movie review: Iron Man


In a word, fantastic! The best adaptation of a Marvel Comic to a live-action movie yet. The high points:


1. Casting. It would never have occurred to me to cast Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark- which is why casting directors make the big bucks, and I don’t. He and Paltrow captured the relationship between Stark and his Gal Friday Pepper perfectly. Is it just me, or is Jeff Bridges starting to look like Jesse Ventura nowadays?


2. Special effects. It would have been so, so easy to go over the top- but they didn’t. The effects were exactly what was needed to tell the story- perfectly done, but no flash for flash’s sake.


3. The story. In today’s atmosphere, it would have been tempting to make the story a debate on America’s presence in the Middle East- but they told the story of personal crisis of conscience and personal redemption that the original comic book dealt with. It will be interesting to see in the inevitable sequels whether they deal with his alcoholism as well.


As a fan of the original comic book, I couldn’t have asked for better, and didn’t expect it to be this good. If you’ve never read the comic, don’t let that stop you from catching a fine summer flick.

5 comments:

Chalicechick said...

Jana-who-creates loved it, I didn't like it at all. I like my superhero movies angsty and when the superhero can just be an asshole and faces no consequences, it bugs me.

But both you and Jana know a hell of a lot more about superheroes than I do, so I guess I'm just missing something.

CC

Joel Monka said...

I don't know about no consequences- he had no real friends, no real family, and couldn't let himself get close to Pepper for fear of screwing up the only relationship that was kind of working. In the comics, they kept that tension going between them for years; I wonder if they'll do that in the movies, too. And I thought he got kind of angsty when he saw what his weapons really did. But these were all much more clear in the comic than the movie, I'll grant you. In the comic, he became a full-fledged alcoholic, caused an accident "Superheroing under the influence", and was forced to turn the suit over to his bodyguard while he went into rehab- but I doubt they'll use THAT storyline in the movies.

Chalicechick said...

((don't know about no consequences- he had no real friends, no real family, and couldn't let himself get close to Pepper for fear of screwing up the only relationship that was kind of working.))

I guess. I wish the other characters had noticed this a little more. One of the things I like about the Spiderman series is that when Peter Parker is an asshole, people say "hey, quit being an asshole." Nobody seemed willing to say that to Iron Man. Even Pepper made it clear that the women he sleeps with are "trash" while never once communicating disapproval of his own part in the interaction.

I get that he felt some remorse over the weapons, though that his solution was to design one more weapon that presumably could also fall into the wrong hands didn't make a lot of sense to me. I realize that there would be no movie if he had just picked up the phone and called one of his buddies at the pentagon when he found out what Obediah was up to, but that seems like what a genuinely remorseful person would have done.

The alcoholism plot would be interesting and would probably improve my opinion of the series. Right now the Iron Man of the movie is a bit munchkiny to me. He makes me think of a beginning RPG'er going "Ok, I wanna play a super genius in awesome physical shape with functionally infinite money who is incredibly handsome and sleeps with supermodels. Oh, and he needs a devoted assistant who looks like Gwenyth Paltrow."

Joel Monka said...

"I get that he felt some remorse over the weapons, though that his solution was to design one more weapon that presumably could also fall into the wrong hands didn't make a lot of sense to me." Ah, well, you're not functionally equipped to understand that one. You see, the writers, publishers, and comsumers of these comics all suffered a syndrome known today as "testosterone poisoning". It actually makes perfect sense to someone in that condition, just as "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" is a really good movie to someone doing enough acid.

""Ok, I wanna play a super genius in awesome physical shape with functionally infinite money who is incredibly handsome and sleeps with supermodels." I'm going to let you roll for me next time- I've never gotten enough points for any of my characters to get all that!

Chalicechick said...

((I'm going to let you roll for me next time- I've never gotten enough points for any of my characters to get all that!)))

Well, yeah, because if you were allowed to play a character like that, the game wouldn't be very interesting.

Thus my issue with the movie.

CC
aware she's beginning to beat a dead horse. Also, yeah, her friends who like the comic all liked the movie.