I liked Ironman the movie-this may have something to do with the fact that I have never been a big fan of Ironman the Comic. It’s hard to go into a film of something you grew up loving and not find it wanting. Case in point, one of the trailers before Ironman started was for Ed Norton’s The Incredible Hulk-I’m a huge fan of the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno Tv Series. For me the biggest problem with the last Hulk movie was that the CGI sucked-it looks like they are using the same CGI, or worse, for this one. Ironman, however, was born for CGI-as one of the things that CGI does bad is organics-like The Hulk, one of the things CGI does with photo realism is metal-like Ironman.
The story of Tony Stark, Merchant of Death is updated to fit in with the world of Terrorists and Weapons of Mass Destruction. We know they have weapons of mass destruction because Tony Stark’s company is manufacturing them. After being kidnapped and nearly dying-Tony Stark is tough as well as a genius-he has a change of heart and doesn’t want to make things that blow up any more. This is a shock to his partner in war crimes played very well by a bald and bearded Jeff Bridges.
I knew that Robert Downy, Jr was going to star in Ironman-though I will always be tempted to call him Morton Downy Jr-I’m just of that age where Morton was a lot more famous than Robert. Tony Stark is a drunk and a womanizer, did Robert Downy even need to study the script?
I was shocked to see the old and mean Jeff Bridges, but happy as well, he was great. The second shock in the cast was Gwyneth Paltrow as the cute and perky Pepper Potts-as silly a name as any Stan Lee ever came up with. Stan the Man makes a cameo dressed as a Hugh Hefner look a like. Terrance Howard looks sort of familiar, but nothing spring to mind as to what I might have seen him in. He is good as the sort of straight man in Ironman.
There are several funny/touching moments between Tony Stark and his idiot savant robots. His lab and his house, as well as the Ironman suit, have intelligences of their own. The story is fun, as are the many test flights and weapons trails that don’t go quite as planned. The effects are great and very seldom do you have that whole-wow, nice effect-feeling you get from all of Lucas’s recent efforts. The trailer for the Indiana Jones films looks depressingly like the trailers for the last couple of Star Wars films-George Lucas will be so happy when the tech for digital actors is better and he doesn’t have to waste time with anything real at all.
Ironman looks, sounds, and feels really good. As all those striking Writers kept telling us-Its All About The Story, Stupid.
