So the Summer Movie Season has officially started in my book with the release of Iron Man. I don't mind an early May start date (as opposed to when I was a kid and Memorial Day Weekend seemed to be the start). Thankfully its no earlier like it had been in a number of years.
My wife and I got my parents to watch Malcolm so we could head down to the AMC 14-Plex in Port Chester (we prefer them to the Stamford theaters these days for a variety of reasons I'll get into later). A good friend came down from Boston on Thursday night to visit and joined us for the flick.
Not having had lunch and hitting a matinee with enough time to buy crap at the concession stand (but not enough time to have a proper sit down lunch at one of the many fine restaurants nearby), we made some food selections. While we each went for combo meals, I'm still amazed that when movie theaters sell food they can't charge a bit less (or heck even a bit more) for LESS Soda. I drank about a third of that 40 thousand once Diet Coke.
Anyway...we got a decent crop of previews:
The Spirit -- While I'm interested in this because I really love Will Eisner's comic, I'm not sure if I like Frank Miller's choice of going with the Sin City/300 route (assuming the trailer's look is anything like the finished film...this is a teaser after all). And using Ennio Morricone's music from The Untouchables is just wrong (its like using John Williams' theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark on a trailer for National Treasure).
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull -- I've seen a few trailers and commercials for this one already and they've all given me the same reaction "meh". This one actually got me a bit excited to see the film. Just what a trailer's supposed to do (not that we weren't going to go anyway...with a new baby on the way, going to the movies is getting more and more difficult...so we're picking a choosing "event" films mostly...this is one of the four "summer" films we're definitely seeing anyway).
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian -- While I did enjoy the first film, there's nothing drawing me to see this in the theaters. Maybe that'll change when it hits DVD.
The Incredible Hulk -- The first preview left me very underwhelmed. The new one got me a bit more excited. Maybe it was more action or maybe it was just the addition of a few bars of the TV series theme at the end. (This is also one of the four films we plan on catching this summer assuming we can get a sitter for two kids).
The Love Guru -- I've seen Mike Meyers do this shtick before...it still doesn't do much for me. It just doesn't seem that funny.
You Don' t Mess with the Zohan -- Adam Sandler's always a bit hit or miss with me, but this film seems bizarre enough and looks funny enough that I may try and catch this on DVD (it seems to be about the greatest Israeli spy who decides to quit and become a hair stylist in New York -- of course some of his old Arab enemies show up and chaos ensues).
And now our main presentation...
I've been a comic book fan since 1982 when my grandfather took me to see Swamp Thing (well...technically I had been a fan since before then...but I never really read/collected comics until after I saw Swamp Thing). And I've mostly been a DC Comics fan, but there were a few Marvel characters I followed. Iron Man was never really one of them (well...I was not a reader of his solo adventures, but I did read his adventures with The Avengers). But I knew who he was, who his supporting cast was and what his story was. As I got older, and my comic habits changed and fluctuated, I eventually started reading his solo adventures when they got collected in trade paperbacks.
And now he's made it onto the silver screen in a big budget film (not that you could make a film about a guy in a technically complicated battle suit with anything less than a big budget). And the film ranks up there on the better end of the comic book film spectrum. Very much on par with the first two Spider-Man films, Batman Begins and the first two X-Men (to use recent films for comparison and not go back to 1978's Superman which I still consider an amazing film).
For those who don't know, Iron Man is about billionaire genius playboy industrialist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) who is kidnapped by some terrorists while in Afghanistan (it was the Viet Cong in the original comic stories) and forced to make them a missile just like the new ones his company is making for their enemies. Instead he creates a wearable suit of armor with some attached weapons and flight capabilities so he can escape. Once back in his normal life, he decides to dedicate his company to no longer running the military industrial complex and start trying to help the people his weapons have been used to hurt. Of course, his Board of Directors, led by Obediah Stane (Jeff Bridges) is going to have something to say about all of this.
The film moves at a very brisk pace thanks to director Jon Favreau's handling of the entire operation. The cast is engaging and none of them seem to be stuck or mired in comic book cliches. Robert Downey Jr. is perfectly cast as Tony Stark. He has the swagger and cockiness that the character needs and deserves both before and after his capture at the hands of terrorists. The rest of the cast doesn't get lost in a convoluted plot and all hold their own nicely, particularly Gwenyth Paltrow as Stark's assistant/love-interest Pepper Potts. The special effects serve the plot (instead of the other way around) and they look great (as they should in such a big budget/high profile film). A sequel is something to look forward to coming out of this (and they've laid the groundwork for one with the "Ten Rings" terrorists possibly being tied to Iron man villain The Mandarin from the comic books). And make sure you stay until the very end of the credits for a cool scene (if you didn't already know it was there).
It'll be interesting to see if this film brings new readers to the Marvel comic book and what kind of reaction they may have. For while Iron Man is pretty much Iron Man (guy is cool suit), the Tony Stark of the movie is very different from the Tony Stark of the comics. The silver screen version goes through a change that essentially turns him from a conservative into a liberal. In the comics, Stark is currently the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the biggest backer of a superhero registration act that led to last summer's giant company-wide crossover known as Civil War (which resulted in many big name heroes essentially becoming fugitives as well as the death of Captain America). Of course, all that could change as this summer's big crossover is a story involving infiltration of the super hero community by the shape-shifting alien race known as the Skrulls. So maybe the Tony Stark of the current comics isn't really Tony Stark at all.
Anyway...I will be back sooner rather than later with more reviews...next up at the movie theaters: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but before that we'll take a look at Mr. Jones entire career as a franchise (previous films, TV series, books, comics and video games).
Be seeing you.
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