I'm rewatching Iron Man (it's playing on FX). You know, I've only seen the first film once, and I really didn't give it a fair chance the first time around. I think I thought it was "alright" mainly because:
a. I'd never heard of Iron Man at all before the movie came out. I'm a very bad geek.
b. I couldn't understand why they made a movie about a
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You know, as much as I like Don Cheadle, something about Terrence Howard just fits Rhodey better, for me. His build and everything. I miss him :(
- Obadiah. Dear God, his confrontation with Tony before the climactic battle is so chilling and quietly menacing.
It's awesome! Which makes the actual knock-down drag out fight kind of lame and obvious by comparison. That's one of the few flaws of Iron Man, for me. Obadiah gets a little too mwahaha powermad once he gets the suit on, and I guess it makes sense, it's just a little boring after the subtle menace of before.
And yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to The Avengers more than the new Batman movie. I'm sure TDKR will be all deep and well acted and entirely lacking interesting human-seeming characters aside from like Alfred and Commissioner Gordon and full of angst, but The Avengers will not leave me feeling exhausted after I watch it. Even if my ship gets literally Jossed this time around.
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I thought I preferred Don Cheadle because I'd seen the sequel twice more recently, but now I think they tie. Each brings something different to it, and I really can't decide which I like better.
Obadiah gets a little too mwahaha powermad once he gets the suit on, and I guess it makes sense, it's just a little boring after the subtle menace of before.
Very true. Obadiah + Iron Monger suit = cliche city. But with two supersuits, I'm not sure if there's much more they could do. But the menace before is just so perfect. I love the line, "Your father helped give us the atomic bomb. Now imagine if he'd been as selfish as you." There are just so many great things about it, especially now that we've seen IM2 and Captain America and got a peek at the whole Tony vs. Howard thing.
The Avengers will not leave me feeling exhausted after I watch it.
Also true. I showed it to my mother last summer and I couldn't stop thinking, "Has it really always been this painful?"
TDKR is going to be a giant treatise on a hero's fall or something, probably with MLA citations at the end, and the critics will eat that up. But The Avengers is going to be a gigantic roller coaster ride, and we'll all come out saying, WHEEEEE!!!"
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Don Cheadle doesn't do a bad job or anything, just Terrence Howard's physically reads more military to me. Although, to be fair, Rhodey is Air Force so they're usually not as built. I also love that the guy who plays the daddy detective on The Good Wife is in both movies as a Major. I like to pretend it's the same character, that was just his career before he settled down to be a badass stay-at-home dad.
I think the problem is that the fight goes on too long; I get that if they were going to pay for the CGI stuff they might as well get their money's worth, but it feels unnecessary. But yeah, all of Tony's daddy issues are much more interesting, especially with the way they do tie back to Obbie, who it's implied is very much a surrogate dad to him.
I'm telling you, by the end of TDK I felt like I was suffering from PTSD myself just from all the shit I'd watched the characters go through. It's well done, and all that just...damn, Christopher Nolan, would it kill you to have a sense of humor?! I mean Tony Stark et. al. gets in some pretty good angst of his own, for instance, and yet still manages to enjoy himself once in a while; you never get that with Bale's Bruce Wayne.
I have a feeling that, given Joss, The Avengers will have its downer moments (I'm still at least 60% sure either Coulson or Hawkeye or both are dying, because I love them, and THAT IS WHAT JOSS DOES TO PEOPLE I LOVE), but...still. I can write/read around that. With Nolan's stuff, I don't even want to.
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I guess that true, but yeah, the Air Force has a little more flexibility in build. I have an Uncle who's a Lieutenant Colonel and he's about 6'2", and his son is a Sergeant who's only like 5'8". I guess I'm at an impasse with the Rhodeys. Aw, Daddy Detective! That probably was his former job. No wonder he's so awesome! I love spotting the random people who show up in these movies. The Bowler Hat Guy from Captain America turned out to be the current villain on Justified. It makes the latter more interesting.
The first two times, I was on some sort of adrenaline high, watching the Joker being alternately terrifying and amusing, and Batman just being badass. Then I showed it to my sister and I was like, "Whoa. This is some dark, depressing shit." Then I showed it to my mother and I was like, "Why, Nolan, WHY?!" It's a great film, but yeah, I agree---he needs a sense of humor. Green Lantern tried to compensate for TDK by taking a more Iron Man-ish route, and it ended up a goofy, campy guilty pleasure at best. Maybe in twenty years Warner Bros. and DC will get a proper handle on balancing dark and light.
I'm not sure if Joss will be able to kill off whatever characters he wants since Marvel execs are on board and they probably won't let him touch canon characters. I don't think Clint will get the axe because he hasn't been showcased to the audience enough yet, but I don't know if Coulson's safe. Joss would. And Nolan would probably kill everyone in that kind of situation, just to prove a philosophical point. Because he likes that sort of thing.
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I've only been able to watch it once; I saw it the night it came out (midnight showing that I was lucky enough to get into when someone else got sick and I got their ticket), and I was just so exhausted by the end that...yeah. Yeah, I still don't feel the need to see it again. It has its moments, from what I recall (some nice hints of Alfred's background here and there, and I enjoy him), but not worth the emotional turmoil it caused me.
You know, I kept meaning to catch Green Lantern but I never got around to it. I'm kind of interested, but I guess not that much.
Heh, well...given how little Hawkeye has shown up in the previews I don't know how safe he is, but he's definitely safer than Coulson, especially now that they've brought in Maria Hill, who actually is from the comics. So basically I should start preparing myself now. Noooo, Coulson, nooo.
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