I am Iron Man!

Iron Man was on telly the other week, and then what should pop through our letterbox from LoveFilm but Iron Man 2! So I thought that I'd review them together; two birds, one stone and all that. I'm guessing that most people are aware of the story so I will quickly blast through the plot.

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) of Stark Industries (arms suppliers) is the son of the company founder, robotics genius, and all round suave guy. While demonstrating the latest weaponry in Afghanistan he is kidnapped by terrorists, during which he is wounded in the chest. To prevent shrapnel from burying into his heart and killing him a device is planted in his chest. Tony uses this to power a suit of armour to affect his escape. Back home, Tony uses his robotic skills to upgrade the chest piece and the suit of armour, adding fire-power and much computer wizardry. He then uses the suit to fight evil, starting with the corrupt head of Stark Industries: Obadiah (Jeff Bridges).

When I first heard of this film I assumed it was a version of the novel by Ted Hughes I read as a kid. When I found out this wasn't the case I was first disappointed, and then, having seen all the hype about the film, very wary, and stayed away. Hype does that to me, I didn't see Moulin Rouge for years for the same reason. When I finally did see Iron Man, I was very pleasantly surprised. Robert Downey Jr is perfect for this role, smooth and arrogant without being smarmy and annoying. Jeff Bridges is great as usual, and great support from Gwyneth Paltrow as well.

                                                         Was that my White Russian?

While watching the beginning of the second film, actually I might say up to about 45 min or something, I thought it was a bit flat. I thought that this could be because for a lot of these hero-style films, the first film is usually more interesting as the main character discovers their super-powers. Mmmm. I was about to back up that statement with examples, but could only come up with Spider-man really. X-2 better than X-men, Superman 2, Hellboy II!

Anyway, I thought the first 45 min were a bit aimless, until Sam L Jackson showed up and told Tony to stop arse-ing about. At that point the film developed some plot and became a whole lot more enjoyable, though I was confused with why they replaced Terrence Howard with Don Cheadle as Rhodey. Jon Favreau has done a great job with these two films, including a massive cameo for himself (actually I think it goes beyond a cameo).

Best bits:

Mickey Rourke slicing Grand Prix cars up in Monaco with his electric tentacle things.

Tony creating a Small Hadron Collider in his apartment to create a new element!

Any section of film with AC/DC playing in the background.

Links: True Grit, Spidey, Gay Rugby, and "Original" Films

Movie|Line celebrates a year of "The Verge," their great up-and-coming actor series.
Cinema Blend goosing the sales of True Grit (the novel)
Today One of the Fantastic Four will die in the comic's #587th issue. Does anyone still believe in these marketing ploys? I'm sure they'll come back to life within 3 years. That's how comics do.
MUBI The great Michel Piccoli is 85 today. Has anyone seen La Belle Noiseuse (1991)? That's such a good one.
CineEuropa international actor Armin Mueller-Stahl will receive a lifetime achievement award at Berlinale this year.
The Guardian talks to Andrew Garfield about Spider-Man (with audio)
Blog Stage an informative and weird animated bit describing what's going on with Spider Man's Broadway disaster.
Towleroad Mickey Rourke to pay gay rugby legend Gareth Thomas in a sports bio. We've had a lot of sports bios at the movies but you can't say we've had a lot of rugby films, gay or otherwise.
Scott Feinberg, fine Oscar pundit, delivers his top ten.

Finally, the New York Times has a totally bizarre article called "Hollywood Moves Away from Middlebrow Movies" which is about the new quality edict in Hollywood. I never understand these articles which seem to find all sorts of bizarre trends that the box office data doesn't actually support like "originality sells!" Er, no... I wish! I knew the article was in trouble when it says that Hollywood is going for quality and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is referred to as "arty" example of directorial artistry. Let me get this straight, in an article praising studio interest in Quality Original Films one of the prime examples is a messily 3D converted 2D film of a story that's been adapted literally dozens of times for the movies back to the days of silent film?

sigh

I swear to the cinematic gods that that one 2010 junkpile is going to be the death of me. It will not go away. I'll even have to be dealing with it in 2011 for the Oscars. Nooooooooooooooooo
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