Iron Man

Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow

2008

Yup, definitely the action movie to kick off the summer. While not as action-intensive as last years Transformers (which, by the way, ROCKED!), this one has enough to keep you entertained but not overwhelmed. In fact, I could have used a little more action . . . possibly some more kicking of the Afghan rebels.

And of course, Downey plays a great character - a little more heroic than he usually plays, but I don't think there's another actor out there who pulls off arrogant character flaws the way he does, and in Tony Stark, he's got them. And it's good that the movie played to that, because it kept it (cringe to say!) in the realm of believability.

In addition, my 15 year old tells me that Marvel is planning a series of movies that will culminate in their Civil War series (currently running in comic book form) by the 2012 (which, incidentally, is when the Aztec calendar tells us that the world will end), and this explains why Tony Stark admits to being Iron Man at the end of the movie . . . it's a setup for the others to come.

I also read a great article (I forget if it was online or onpaper) about the fact that Marvel controlled this movie (rather then relegating it to another movie studio) which allowed them creative control - that, and a tightly written plot, made this movie entertaining all the way through,

Now that we are on the subjects of both well-written plots and Marvel's overall plan, I must mention that there is an ad for The Incredible Hulk, which I think Marvel plans to release later this summer. As we all know, the full length movie released a few years ago was a STINKER (deserving a row of exclamation points as well as all caps), but I must say that the trailer for this NEW Hulk movie seems to start fresh. That is, it doesn't reference the stinker in any way. In fact, at the end of the trailer, I rather expected to see this across the screen

THE INCREDIBLE HULK
THIS TIME, WE'LL GET IT RIGHT . . . WE PROMISE!

And I hope they do. Looking forward to it.


VG