IRON MAN Review
Hi everybody! Long time, no post!
Life has fallen into the proverbial Chinese classification of 'interesting' for me in 2008. Many elevated highs, with equally deepened lows. Since I'm feeling the need to go on about it all these days, expect a flurry of posts in the near-future.
But for the present, I've gone to experience the first in what looks to be an avalanche of super hero, action adventure movies this summer, seeing Iron Man! Here's what I thought:
Iron Man
9 out of 10 overall.
Full fare value.
Might be worth multi-viewings.
A tight, well managed story.
Rated PG-13
Running time: 2hrs 6mins
It must be understood that I am (for the most part) judging this movie against its other colleges in the super hero genre, and on that level it clearly shins above most! The movie is also smart, clever (I do make a distinction between those two things), and a whole lot of fun to watch. Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark/Iron Man) carries the weight of this movie on his shoulders and manages to take the film to where you'd hope he might. He's brilliant! There was also a huge surprise from Gwyneth Paltrow (Pepper Potts - Tony's personal assistant), who turned in some of the finest work I've seen from her since Shakespeare in Love!
I do have to admit that I'd been holding a minor concern over the director of Iron Man, Jon Faverau. He's never done this sort of movie before. But it's quite possible that the consistent and engaging performances in Iron Man owed much to his touch and experience with his more character driven movies (Elf and Zathura). And everything from the quiet moments to the high action scenes were handled amazingly well! I can't even remember feeling that this movie had any slow, or dragging moments!
Iron Man has the potential to appeal to a much wider audience than most movies in the super hero arena, if for no other reason than the chemistry between Downey Jr. and Paltrow. The story does however follow some well trodden paths, and a few story elements are telegraphed more than they should be, but overall I stamp it as a real success! I'm surprisingly jazzed about this movie and highly recommend it!
Oh, and be sure to stay to the end of the credits! There's an epilogue scene! (And over 80% of the audience didn't see it because they immediately left as the credits started...)
I smell a successful franchise here!
Life has fallen into the proverbial Chinese classification of 'interesting' for me in 2008. Many elevated highs, with equally deepened lows. Since I'm feeling the need to go on about it all these days, expect a flurry of posts in the near-future.
But for the present, I've gone to experience the first in what looks to be an avalanche of super hero, action adventure movies this summer, seeing Iron Man! Here's what I thought:
Iron Man
9 out of 10 overall.
Full fare value.
Might be worth multi-viewings.
A tight, well managed story.
Rated PG-13
Running time: 2hrs 6mins
It must be understood that I am (for the most part) judging this movie against its other colleges in the super hero genre, and on that level it clearly shins above most! The movie is also smart, clever (I do make a distinction between those two things), and a whole lot of fun to watch. Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark/Iron Man) carries the weight of this movie on his shoulders and manages to take the film to where you'd hope he might. He's brilliant! There was also a huge surprise from Gwyneth Paltrow (Pepper Potts - Tony's personal assistant), who turned in some of the finest work I've seen from her since Shakespeare in Love!
I do have to admit that I'd been holding a minor concern over the director of Iron Man, Jon Faverau. He's never done this sort of movie before. But it's quite possible that the consistent and engaging performances in Iron Man owed much to his touch and experience with his more character driven movies (Elf and Zathura). And everything from the quiet moments to the high action scenes were handled amazingly well! I can't even remember feeling that this movie had any slow, or dragging moments!
Iron Man has the potential to appeal to a much wider audience than most movies in the super hero arena, if for no other reason than the chemistry between Downey Jr. and Paltrow. The story does however follow some well trodden paths, and a few story elements are telegraphed more than they should be, but overall I stamp it as a real success! I'm surprisingly jazzed about this movie and highly recommend it!
Oh, and be sure to stay to the end of the credits! There's an epilogue scene! (And over 80% of the audience didn't see it because they immediately left as the credits started...)
I smell a successful franchise here!