See IronMan Before You Hear About It

05May08

It was either that headline or “Don’t See IronMan Less High Than You Would Go To See Harold and Kumar.”

Ironman

Comic book movies are clearly become more widespread. Every other day you hear about a new comic book movie coming out, and without exception, each is either an amazing display of the best Hollywood can do with good acting combined with a familiar story the general population recognizes and special effects that enhance the movie-going experience OR a colossal disappointment, a poorly contrived bastardization of a “graphic novel” that captivated millions (or at least hundreds) of prepubescent boys that now only triggers memories of the longest 2-some hours and the worst $10 you ever spent. Thankfully, Ironman was neatly folded and placed into the former category.

These reformatted comic books are something of a mystery though, at least personally. It is likely that you go into a movie deciding how much you’ll like the movie even before watching it. What could cause such an experience that you’ll already have decided on your experience before taking your seat, and more interestingly, why would anyone go see a movie they don’t think they’d like, especially now when combining the cost of gas to drive to the theater and the admission price for two if you bring your honey-suger-baby-lover combined could realistically cost you half the national debt? These movies in particular don’t particularly have to be “good” to be entertaining, first of all. If you know that they are actually blowing a whole bunch of shit up, and are spending a good half million to do so, it is pretty sexy. So the fact that you have to watch Thomas Haden Church stumble through poorly written dialogue (as a result of the third movie being decidedly the last of the series, thereby leading the logic “they’re already in the theaters! Can’t get their money back now!) can be overlooked if the stunts are creative enough. . .

With all that in mind, I offer my humbled brief review of Ironman. (I hate when I find out specifics about a movie, so I’ll keep it as brief as it needs to be).

Ironman was fun. It was long, and kinda resembled the story of Batman (filthy rich, extremely smart playboy becomes superhero when he realizes what good and evil truly is) but it was pretty damn cool. The extent it was long was due in part that the fight/action scenes were really a series of one-shot kills just with different weapons or tactics being deployed since he was primarily fighting just regular old humans. They had to spice it up, so they put in a crapload of backstory, that got old after a little. The only other thing you need to know before this movie . . .WAIT UNTIL THE CREDITS ARE DONE. For. Real.

Also, the preview for The Black Knight is all over the place. If you haven’t seen it, well, I’m jealous, because when you do go see the movie (because everyone in the world should) than it will blow you away THAT much more. That movie will be so. fucking. cool. And look at that, I already decided I’ll like it just from a preview