I AM IRON MA...Oh, You Know The Rest

It's days like this that I question the wisdom of writing a hobby blog about movies that very few people read. I like to think that maybe, just maybe I have some small influence over the thoughts and movie viewing habits of all the people out there on the tubes but what could I possibly do or say that would change the fortunes of Iron Man? Here we are, its record setting weekend has ended and the only question is how little of an impact that the goofy looking Speed Racer will have on it. I give Speed Racer a 95% chance of sucking mainly because the cartoony look of its CGI really turns me off every time I see the commercials. As the characters look boring and the plot looks to range from "stupid" to "nonexistent" that means we have no awesome special effects to distract us from the hellish experience of boring characters doing stupid/nonexistent things. I'm willing to be proven wrong and sincerely hope that Speed Racer turns out to be a fun time out at the movies but I don't think so. Hmm, the dumbness of Speed Racer seems to have sucked me in and I forgot that this is actually as review of...

IRON MAN!!! This is not just "a popcorn movie*" but rather the type of high concept summer action film that we haven't seen for several years. In addition to the thrilling action sequences and special effects (not at all cartoony, unlike some upcoming crappy films I could mention and damn it, I have to stop thinking about Speed Racer before it consumes me to the point of obsession and I start ranting and babbling inside parentheses...OH DEAR GOD IT'S HAPPENED. What do I do? Maybe put up the right parentheses?) Ah, that's better. Where was I? Oh yeah, in addition to the stuff I mentioned, Iron Man has things like interesting characters that you actually give a crap about. In most action flicks, you could replace the entire cast midway through the movie and no one would notice.

It also does something that I doubt Speed Racer will do (GRRR I did it again!). It had a plot that actually caused me to suspend disbelief. Yeah, that's right, instead of silently mocking Iron Man's plot holes a soon as the credits rolled, I actually sat and watched with interest as the story unfolded. Oh, mind you, there were plot holes galore. I just didn't think about them until, well, now, as I was writing this. The movie opens as billionaire weapons maker/complete A-hole Tony Stark (played brilliantly by Robert Downey Jr.) is captured by insurgents in Afghanistan who want him to build them a missile. They should rigorously guard Stark as he does this but instead they do only minimal supervision over him and his assistant, the man who saved his life by attaching a magnet to his chest so shrapnel wouldn't lacerate his heart (uh, that could be a plot hole too but never mind...SPEED RACER SUCKS, sorry, couldn't help it). This gives Stark time to build a bullet proof battle suit and escape. He then goes home to something else that other action movies usually don't have, a set of interesting supporting characters played by top flight actors. These include his main executive assistant, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), military liaison Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard) and his business partner, Obadiah Stane** (Jeff Bridges).

I don't give all the credit for the movie's quality to one person but I would give a large percentage of the credit to Downey who seems to effortlessly embody Tony Stark, the guy who starts off as the self absorbed, thrill seeking weapons maker who, after his captivity, decides to try to help humanity as a super hero while retaining just enough of his thrill seeking self absorption to remain interesting. Downey should start a club with Johnny Depp and Christopher Walken as the Guys Who Are Always Interesting On Screen Even If The Movies They Are In Totally Blows (GWOAAIOSEITMTAITB). Man, that club name sucks. Glad I'm not a brilliant, quirky actor who has to join it. I credit the other actors too for standing out in what could have been Downey's one-man show.

Well, that about wraps things up. I'm off now to enjoy life as much as I can before Speed Racer pulls me down into its abyss this weekend.


*Someday I'm going to write about why I hate that expression.

** To those of you out there who never read Iron Man comic books or comic books in general, allow me to indulge in a small spoiler. In comics, antagonists have villainous names so if you are a character in a comic book and you have a name like Obadiah Stane, odds are that you're not going to turn out to be the guy who gives the hero puppies and ice cream at the end of the story.