May 04, 2008 02:50

Zheng Han

Movies based off of comic books have had a bad track record. We've got gems like Electra, Catwoman and Spawn. Yet, as I waited in line for the Iron Man, I saw the walls plastered with posters for at least four more new comic book movies. Somewhere in the last decade the general population started to accept comic books, a once socially reprehensible hobby that often resulted in on the spot beatings. America, as a whole must have gotten geekier and my guess is that it's due to the internet. Behind the internet's innocent shell lies a secret plot by the geeks who started it to nerdify America under the cover of blogs, YouTube videos and online poker. Even the most meat headed jocks can be heard today phonetically saying "pwned".
This all comes as a blessing to me, who as a child enjoyed collecting comics. In those years, I always felt that comics by Marvel were somehow superior to its rival DC Comics. Marvel seemed fresher, more modern and captured my attention better. Now that I am older, I can clearly see why. This is one case where Marvel clearly took DC Comic's Batman and made it sexier. Imagine Batman, make him even richer, a more prolific womanizer and turn Alfred, Batman's butler, into a young woman whose relationship with him resembles that of Pam and Jim on The Office. On top of that, we'll take Batman's deadly assortment of boomerangs, jump ropes and bowling balls (which makes me think Batman learned to fight crime by watching the Home Alone series) and replace them with missiles and lasers.
Okay, so two paragraphs in I still really haven't said anything about the movie. If you are able to take in the unbelievable parts of the storyline such as the main character being able to build the space shuttle with a soldering iron and a hammer, then this is quality entertainment. Although it is a step up from your average comic book movie, I still don't see it trumping the comic based movie throne, currently held in my opinion by Spider Man 2.
Iron Man starts with Tony Starks, a wealthy weapons manufacturer who gets captured in Afghanistan by a terrorist group wants to use his million dollar weapons to subdue goat farming villages. While in a cave, Starks manages to build the most sophisticated weapon known to man, a mechanized suit of armor. After escaping, Starks perfects his design and decides fights crime with style, except for when he has to make a landing and decides to shows off his ability to do ballet. He later finds out not all is well within his corporation, and eventually learns the moral of the story that guys who look like bad guys usually are bad guys. Having been betrayed, the film reaches its end with a final fight within the city that I felt could've been more spectacular.
Between the rare combat scenes, there were several successfully executed slapstick humor segments as well as the occasional quirky dialogue between Tony Starks and his assistant Pepper. Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Starks/Iron Man perfectly and executes all of his lines smoothly. Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrence Howard form a great supporting cast and both interact with the Tony Starks character naturally. The CG, however, left more to be desired with iron man sometimes looking like he belongs in a video game and overuse of HDR.
Overall the movie was enjoyable but falls short of a summer blockbuster. Looking at my score of 3.5, I know some of you are probably outraged that this movie scored below Harold and Kumar, my only other review at this time. Where Harold and Kumar was a low budget stoner comedy that lived up to my expectations, this movie could not trump Spider Man 2, which had a less extravagant cast. Harold and Kumar also benefited from my 0.5 bonus for minority casting. Nonetheless, go see this one. It should be the film that sets the bar for this summer's comic book movie releases. Oh, and make sure you stay past the credits, you get to see and hear Samuel L. Jackson using his inside-voice, which is still 30 decibels higher than normal people.

Rating: 3.5/5