Iron Man (2008)

rating: ***

the story: Tony Stark is Iron Man.

what it's all about: I've never found Iron Man to be a particularly good movie.  It opened the same year as The Dark Knight, which to my mind was a great movie.  And of course it gave birth to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), which eventually became the only superhero movie franchise(s) anyone really took seriously.  I liked Iron Man 2 a great deal, but the first one?  I never felt particularly compelled to watch it again, and in fact it took me ten years (yesterday) to do so again, and my impression of it didn't at all change.  This is odd for a number of reasons.  One isn't really that it took me so long to rewatch it, but that I really didn't feel like doing so for so long.  Instant desire to rewatch was something I had for Dark Knight.  I couldn't get enough of Dark Knight.  I like superhero movies.  I like superheroes in general.  Yeah, I'm a DC guy.  By this I mean I tend to like DC superheroes and DC storytelling.  It's not just the superheroes but the storytelling, too.  Marvel doesn't often think of its superheroes in the same way DC does.  At the movies, there's really just Logan and the two Amazing Spider-Man movies.  Then there's stuff like the cartoonish logic of Bryan Singer's first two X-Men, Sam Raimi's first two Spider-Man flicks.  Ironically by the third one, which looked the most cartoonish, he finally went somewhere real.  So of course fans hated it.

Fans loved Iron Man instantly.  Visually it already looked timeless.  It still looks timeless.  The look of the armor matches up exactly in credibility with what you see in Avengers: Infinity War, ten years later.  That's pretty good.  It looks totally different than anything superhero movies had done before.  That was what made Raimi's Spider-Man pop, what made audiences "believe a man can fly" in 1978.  In that sense, of course the MCU took over the popular imagination.  It did something no one had seen before, and that always hooks the masses. 

But in terms of storytelling...It's awful.  Just...awful.

Tony Stark is sold as a tech genius.  Great!  Fantastic!  In 2008, Steve Jobs was a cultural icon!  Totally legit!  But...Tony Stark isn't sold as a Steve Jobs tech genius.  He's sold as...a weapons manufacturer.  And that's all he's known for.  And...when he says he won't make weapons again...that's it.  He's apparently done.  Forever.  And yet...We see his private lab, and he's got robots working for him.  He's got J.A.R.V.I.S., the virtual assistant who would later merge with the android Vision.  The rest of the world?  Doesn't have those robots.  Doesn't have J.A.R.V.I.S.  I think Siri wasn't a thing yet, in 2008.  Alexa wasn't a thing.  And of course, Tony famously keeps Iron Man to himself. 

Logistically this is idiotic.  In every single sense.  It only makes sense if you're trying to explain how Iron Man happens.  But in the real world, Iron Man makes no sense.  At all.  So you have to either accept the insanity of it or you can't.  And you see how idiotic the whole plot is.

Even as a weapons manufacturer, taking away everything else, Tony Stark makes no sense as a huge celebrity, appearing on every major magazine cover, as depicted in the film.  Weapons manufacturers aren't celebrities.  Name one.  The only "name" weapons developer I can think of is Oppenheimer, and he was never celebrated like this.  When Iron Man 2 shows a vintage video of Tony Stark's dad, it's clearly a pastiche of...Walt Disney.  Hilarious, considering the first two Iron Man movies were distributed by...Paramount.

But even the conceit of Tony being captured in the midst of a weapons demonstration...in the field of engagement...That's stupid.  I'm really sure that would never happen.  And then he gets captured.  And he's got shrapnel in his chest, so the bad guys...have the ability to give him tech that needs to be inserted onto/into his chest.  That can also be modified to power a suit of armor he makes.  Because.

This is the sort of nitpicking fans routinely give movies and/or TV shows they hate.  Usually, I try really hard not to do it, because nitpicking usually is even more idiotic than what these fans are attempting to portray as idiotic.  It's insipid.  It's a poor way to analyze something.  In this instance, though, these were problems I noticed immediately.  I don't normally instantly have these sorts of problems.  I hate how Singer uses Professor X as a macguffin in the first two X-Men movies.  Both times the exact same way.  It's lazy storytelling, something that needs to happen in order to move the story along because no one bothered to think the story through.  In other words, I'm not talking about nitpicking at all (mindlessly being annoyed by story elements while attempting to portray yourself as smarter than the people who developed them), but bad storytelling.  I always hate bad storytelling. 

And Iron Man is, again, beyond anything else, bad storytelling. 

The worst thing?  Even as it completely rejuvenates Robert Downey Jr.'s career, making him far more popular and relevant than he's ever been...Iron Man completely wastes and trashes Jeff Bridges in the process.  How does that even happen???  And you can sort of tell that it motivated him to seek better material, as suddenly he went into a whole career renaissance (Crazy Heart, True Grit, Hell or High Water) with material that was nothing like his lifeless role in Iron Man, the grizzled iconoclast Tony Stark only wishes he'll become, the culmination of everything Bridges had done before.

And Terrence Howard?  Marvel has Terrence Howard, and...nope.  Not in Iron Man 2.  How does that even happen???  Faran Tahir, who would turn up as a Starfleet captain in the 2009 Star Trek reboot, lamented playing a terrorist in Iron Man.  Do you think he ever changed his mind?  In Iron Man 3 they change the whole idea of Tahir's role, giving the lead-up to the Mandarin to a sham played by Ben Kingsley.  They try and pretend real terrorists were never a part of the story.  Yeah!

Gwyneth Paltrow plays Pepper Potts, the Tony Stark assistant who in 2018 would probably be cheering on #MeToo, but instead becomes a slow-burning love interest, who puts up with all of Tony's antics...because.  They never even try to develop her character, not in Iron Man, not in any other appearance.  Clark Gregg, in his first appearance as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil Coulson, is mostly asked to dance around the joke of what S.H.I.E.L.D. actually stands for aside from a very elaborate excuse for an acronym.  Leslie Bibb plays a hot chick who's also a reporter for Vanity Fair, which is one of those inexplicable magazines smitten with weapons manufacturer Tony Stark.

Really, it's only Downey Jr. and Bettany who appear fully-formed and presentable for future appearances.  Good solid foundation, sure, but...

We learn late in the movie that Bridges' character was in cahoots with Tahir all along, that he set up Tony to die, as he did his father, to kill the golden goose, because...That part is never really made clear.  It would make sense if it were because either Stark had figured out what he was doing, but...Yeah.  Not in this movie.  Not in any movie.  He just likes to do away with tech geniuses, I guess.  The movie goes out of its way to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that not only is Tony the only person capable of creating the tech he does, but that Bridges' character isn't even in the conversation.  In the era of Steve Jobs?  Bill Gates?  Steve Wozniak???

The funny thing about all this is that 2011's Green Lantern actually borrows a lot of Iron Man's story elements, and does them better, and fans insist to this day that it's a badly made movie, full of plot holes.  Really???  In the interests of full disclosure, Green Lantern is based on a DC superhero, and so you can call bias if you like, but for me it's still storytelling.  Green Lantern has great storytelling.  Iron Man doesn't.

So Iron Man 2 follows it with infinitely better storytelling.  Fans disagree.  But the insanely popular MCU happens anyway.  I can't possibly be upset about that.  There's still good material that results from it, the Captain America movies notably. 

I'd hope that in the years to come, anyone looking to revisit the whole thing recognizes the first one in the sequence for what it is: a ridiculous mess. 

2008 Capsule Reviews

The Dark Knight
rating: *****
review: Best known for Heath Ledger's iconic Joker, this may yet prove to be the definitive superhero story of its era.

The Fall
rating: *****
review: Tarsem's brilliantly imagined, and visualized, portrait of a suicidal stuntman and the little girl who saves his life.

In Bruges
rating: ****
review: Colin Farrell has found his most universal acclaim as a hitman struggling with the accidental killing of a child.  It may help that it features his most brash performance since his breakthrough, Tigerland.

Hancock
rating: ****
review: Come for Will Smith's degenerate superhero, stay for the unexpected twist.

Cassandra's Dream
rating: ****
review: I prefer to think of this Woody Allen flick as Colin Farrell's answer to In Bruges, as a guy tortured by a decision he made.

Che
rating: ****
review: Regardless of what you think about his legacy, this is a brilliant depiction of Che's activities, perhaps the essential film from Soderbergh and Benicio Del Toro.

W.
rating: ****
review: Oliver Stone presents a fascinatingly sympathetic portrait of the second-most recent controversial Republican president.  Between this and Nixon, can we expect a Trump biopic in the years to come?

Pride & Glory
rating: ****
review: Gavin O'Connor, Joe Carnahan, Edward Norton, and Colin Farrell collide.  A can't-miss combination of talents.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall
rating: ****
review: Between Jason Segal's career-altering puppetry (which led directly to a revival of The Muppets) and Russell Brand's ideal role (as pompous rock star Aldous Snow, who was later featured in his own movie, Get Him to the Greek), this one rises well above the typical raunch comedy template.

Yes Man
rating: ****
review: Jim Carrey's increasingly gimmicked-oriented comedies might have begun to feel too obvious, but it's certainly worth the nonsense to enjoy, well, the nonsense, as well as Zooey Deschanel increasingly sneaking herself into a side music career.

Seven Pounds
rating: ****
review: One of Will Smith's signature dramatic performances.

The Happening
rating: ****
review: M. Night Shyamalan's most pure experience, a totally inexplicable event that can only be experienced, his ultimate rebellion against the twist ending backlash.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
review: ****
review: An incredibly tough act for Brad Pitt to follow, the culmination of the career he sought to avoid (that moment when he's back in his handsome prime) and the one he actively pursued for years (without having to come up with a weird character, because the role is inherently weird).

Doomsday
review: ****
review: Mad Max without Mad Max.

The Wrestler
review: ****
review: Even though it mostly botches what professional wrestling is actually like behind the façade, it still finds the beating heart behind it.

The Other Boleyn Girl
rating: ****
review: Ambition truly becomes nightmare; the ultimate Natalie Portman experience (no swans needed, black or otherwise).

Body of Lies
rating: ****
review: Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio clash (or, reunite nearly fifteen years after The Quick and the Dead).

Cloverfield
rating: ****
review: Found-footage saga about a Godzilla event that effectively uses the format.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
rating: ****
review: I'm no Indy connoisseur, but I enjoyed this later follow-up.  The more iconic the storytelling (as in The Last Crusade), the better I like this pulp hero.

Frost/Nixon
rating: ****
review: Post-resignation, everyone wanted a "gotcha" moment from Nixon.  This is the story of the closest anyone ever came.

Burn After Reading
rating: ****
review: Hilarious and alarming tale of a lot of idiots.

Quantum of Solace
rating: ****
review: Before the sensation of Daniel Craig's Bond had sunk in, his second outing was allowed to exist at the same level as the first, and few have yet appreciated that fact.

Step Brothers
rating: ****
review: The combination of Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly always creates something special; if you can make it through their ridiculous shenanigans, you'll be happy for their happy ending.

The Love Guru
rating: ***
review: Mike Myers comes up with another great character, but there's not really much of a story to tell around him.

Smart People
rating: ***
review: A lot of great actors are depressed.

Vantage Point
rating: ***
review: A kind of wasted opportunity to spotlight a bunch of interesting actors.

Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who!
rating: ***
review: Jim Carrey is at last reduced to a cartoon, but strangely it's one of his most subdued performances.

Get Smart
rating: ***
review: Steve Carell essentially replicates his Office persona with another TV show remake, this time on the big screen.

Iron Man
rating: ***
review: Movie that launched a juggernaut.  Relatively humble origins.  I always compared Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark to Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow.  These solo movies are really why the fourth and fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movies were such huge mistakes, because that outsize personality needs equally interesting surroundings.

Leatherheads
rating: ***
review: George Clooney in one of his more blatant attempts to mine his Old Hollywood appeal.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army
rating: ***
review: Later remade as Thor: The Dark World.

Revolutionary Road
rating: ***
review: Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio reunite under considerably more subdued happenings.

Bottle Shock
rating: ***
review: The most compelling thing about this one is Chris Pine just before Kirk.

Charlie Bartlett
rating: ***
review: The late Anton Yelchin in an early spotlight.

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
rating: ***
review: Personally, I love Simon Pegg as a leading man, but I think for most other movie fans, the title of this movie is fairly accurate.

Hamlet 2
rating: ***
review: Steve Coogan is crazy enough to stage that play. 

Meet Dave
rating: ***
review: Eddie Murphy beginning to concede that audiences aren't really showing up for his act anymore.

21
rating: ***
review: Jim Sturgess in his bid for casual fans.

Tropic Thunder
rating: ***
review: This parody of '80s action flicks has a gonzo Robert Downey Jr. performance going for it, and a highly overrated Tom Cruise supporting role.

Run Fat Boy Run
rating: ***
review: Honestly, the best thing about Simon Pegg roles is that he's really the only actor who could pull them off.

Speed Racer
rating: ***
review: A lot of times, when filmmakers are trying to reclaim past popularity they try to do variations of what used to work.  That's what the Wachowskis have been doing since the Matrix sequels cool interest in the original.  This is a glossy pastiche of a semblance of the original mystique.

Valkyrie
rating: ***
review: Tom Cruise was ramping up his comeback at the time, and thought this big dramatic we-almost-killed-Hitler flick would help out.  Didn't really.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
rating: **
review: What if you replace the Egyptian mummy thing with a Chinese mummy thing?  Turns out it's a recipe for irrelevance.

WALL-E
rating: **
review: This was a short stretched awkwardly into a feature-length film.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Slumdog Millionaire
rating: **
review: An embarrassing attempt to legitimize a colonial view of India.

Romulus, My Father
rating: **
review: Low-key Eric Bana drama.

Babylon A.D.
rating: **
review: Vin Diesel attempting another big franchise.  He has yet to learn that they always happen by accident, for him, and never by design.

RockNRolla
rating: **
review: I'd watch this again for the Tom Hardy supporting role, but otherwise British gangster movies aren't generally my thing.

Last Chance Harvey
rating: **
review: Dustin Hoffman went through this whole period where he didn't seem relevant anymore, and the harder he tried the worse he failed.  This was one of his better efforts.

Twilight
rating: **
review: Obviously the movies, and the books, were a huge success, but there's very little life in this first entry.  Heh.

The Spirit
rating: **
review: Frank Miller reengineers the Will Eisner strip into a movie much like the Robert Rodriquez movies based on his Sin City comics.  Probably mostly of interest to diehards of those movies.

Deception
rating: **
review: Wants to be edgy drama, but...one of Hugh Jackman's true misfires.

88 Minutes
rating: **
review: Huge fan of Neal McDonough, but it's a shame his best bid for a breakout movie role was this unbalanced Al Pacino flick.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars
rating: **
review: Star Wars so horribly lack perspective that they legitimately claim the TV material that followed this is better than the prequels.

Australia
rating: **
review: Another relative misfire in casting for Hugh Jackman.

Jumper
rating: **
review: Bid to jumpstart Hayden Christensen's popular career post-Star Wars falls short.

The Incredible Hulk
rating: **
review: Total waste of Edward Norton in the second of two Hulk movies that blow up the monster size and have no idea what to do with it.  If you're trying to recreate King Kong rather than Frankenstein?  Find a tall building.

Wanted
rating: *
review: Far too smug.

Boarding Gate
rating: *
review: Asia Argento in a European action flick.

Superhero Movie
rating: *
review: Ha!  They made this parody far too early!  But actually a pretty good Spider-Man movie, all considered.

Funny Games
rating: *
review: Dreadful European horror.

Fantasy films 1982-2008

Today we're going to talk a little about these movies:

The Dark Crystal (1982)

 

The NeverEnding Story (1984)

 

Return to Oz (1985)

 

Legend (1985)

 

Labyrinth (1986)

 

The Princess Bride (1987)

 

Willow (1988)

 

Hellboy (2004)

 

Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

 

The Fall (2008)

 

 

Today's discussion is about fantasy movies.  Obviously, it's a subject today that involves the Harry Potter films and Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, but for my purposes these will be omitted so we can concentrate on the '80s push that helped make them possible, as well as a few other more recent entries.

 

Jim Henson's production offices got the ball rolling back during the first season of Saturday Night Live, where the concepts behind The Dark Crystal were first explored.  The same company later developed Labyrinth, which has been the standard memory of the '80s fantasy push, thanks in part to the participation of David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly.  Younger fantasy fans had The NeverEnding Story and its sequel, while Return to Oz was an attempt to follow-up the iconic Wizard of Oz. 

 

Legend proved to be a bomb, and only took on cult status when Ridley Scott later released a director's cut.  It can be argued that Legend has the longest creative legacy.  Besides the look of Hellboy (which evokes Tim Curry's character in the movie), it can also be said to have inspired Pan's Labyrinth, the breakthrough critical success of Guillermo del Toro.  Willow might be said to be the first attempt at correcting the perceived mistakes of Legend.

 

Following the mixed fortunes of these early efforts, The Princess Bride went in an entirely different direction, downplaying the fantasy elements and instead focusing on the comedic potential of the humans involved.  The Fall later went further and made the whole thing dramatic.

 

It's interesting to think of these movies in relation to each other, whether or not the filmmakers did at the time they were being made.  Genre fans will no doubt have spent some time comparing them, or simply making preferences (that's the business of being a genre fan right there).  Some of them will no doubt have fallen through the cracks, so that unless you know they exist you might think the ones you do know are all you need to know.  Hollywood has never embraced fantasy as fully as other genres, which makes the '80s explosion all the more notable.  Yet, with the genre's fanciful elements, these films are often the source of remarkable creativity, and as such are capable of being among the most breathtaking movies you'll ever experience.







2008

Viewed/Ranked

1. The Dark Knight
2. The Fall
3. In Bruges
4. Hancock
5. Cassandra's Dream
6. Che
7. W.
8. Pride & Glory
9. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
10. Yes Man
11. Seven Pounds
12. The Happening
13. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
14. Doomsday
15. The Wrestler
16. The Other Boleyn Girl
17. Body of Lies
18. Cloverfield
19. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
20. Frost/Nixon
21. Burn After Reading
22. Quantum of Solace
23. The Love Guru
24. Smart People
25. Vantage Point
26. Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!
27. Get Smart
28. Iron Man
29. Leatherheads
30. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
31. Revolutionary Road
32. Bottle Shock
33. Charlie Bartlett
34. How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
35. Hamlet 2
36. Meet Dave
37. 21
38. Step Brothers
39. Tropic Thunder
40. Run Fat Boy Run
41. Speed Racer
42. Valkyrie
43. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
44. WALL-E
45. Slumdog Millionaire
46. Romulus, My Father
47. Babylon A.D.
48. RockNRolla
49. Last Chance Harvey
50. Twilight
51. The Spirit
52. Deception
53. 88 Minutes
54. Star Wars: The Clone Wars
55. Australia
56. Jumper
57. The Incredible Hulk
58. Wanted
59. Boarding Gate
60. Superhero Movie
61. Funny Games

Other Notable Releases

1. Blindness
2. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
3. Gran Torino
4. High School Musical 3: Senior Year
5. JCVD
6. Kung Fu Panda
7. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
8. Mamma Mia!
9. Marley and Me
10. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
11. Pineapple Express
12. Rachel Getting Maried
13. Rambo
14. Righteous Kill
15. Role Models
16. Sex and the City
17. Son of Rambow
18. Swing Vote
19. Synecdoche, New York
20. Vicky Christina Barcelona