I've been getting a few emails from our more devoted readers/fans as of late asking me to get back to reviewing some newer movie instead of just sticking with me guns (pardon me, I seem to have gone Irish there for a second) on this "52 Years, 52 Weeks, 52 Killers, Monsters and Freaks" thing. Well, I stepped out into the courtyard of our apartment complex the other night and found myself inside what sounded like a giant beehive as 70 separate AC units hummed in rhythm with each other from all directions around me, so I knew that it was summer. And what does summer mean? Yep, we're well submerged into the 2008 blockbuster season, and now that I'm caught up with my "52 Project", it looks like I can get down to putting to task what may just be shaping up to be the least groan inducing 'buster season ever. Actually, I was hoping to get started on this last week, but I was in the swampy ass of civilization, trapped in a place where technology hasn't made it past 1997. Anyone who says that "dial-up internet is better than no internet" isn't well acquainted with my very limited patience or my very “quick to violence” disposition... Speaking of the middle of nowhere, mild internet shout out to my friend Justin. Hopefully he'll join the rest of us in the 21st century and get himself some web service so he can actually see the fruits of his prodding me to mention his name... because we all know how having your name mentioned on a website nobody reads can lead to such great things as wild sex with beautiful people and a 3 hour work week that pays six figures a year.
Marvel struck the iron (pun most assuredly intended) early this summer much like they've made it a point to do since 1999: by releasing one big comic book action movie after another, each on the first weekend of May... which, being the fan boy I am I like to point out, just so happens to be on or within days of my birthday. Suck it Trebek! Anyway, as we all know by now, this year's blockbuster season kick-off was Iron Man. Not only was it the kick-off, but it's given the rest of Hollywood some pretty hefty standards to live up to for the next few months... until all the artsy crap comes out in the fall to give the Academy Awards voters one last reach around before 2009.
Tony Stark (Robert Downy Jr.) is the envy of every teenage boy (and guy whose emotional development didn't evolve out of high school): he's stinking rich, doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want, oozes charisma like Rocky Balboa oozes Crisco, gets drunk every night, has more witty comebacks than a year of Spider-Man comics, shacks up with every vapid piece of cover candy on the magazine stands, drives around in fast and expensive toys, and his parents are dead so there's nobody to threaten to take away his trust fund in an effort to keep his self-serving douche baggery in line! Where's all that money come from? Prior to his dad's current career as a worm penthouse, Tony's poppa founded Stark Enterprises: a weapons manufacturing company that makes big green off of smears of red... but they're generally smears that happen in other countries, so it's okay. This all changes when Tony gets 'jacked by terrorists in Afghanistan while giving the US military a demonstration of his latest exploding compensation for his small penis: a super cluster missile known as "The Jericho". The group is known as The Ten Rings (a name that will no doubt catch the attention of loyal Shellhead readers) and are led by a gent with a hard-on for Ghengis Khan that's only rivaled by his love for fondling his big gaudy class ring (another not-so-thinly-veiled *wink*wink* for the fan boys and girls), who demands that Stark build him his own Jericho unless he likes the taste of gunpowder and trying to breath out of a big hole in the back of his head. Stark's only assistant in the endeavor is a doctor from the war torn area who had to fit our protagonist with a homemade electro-magnet (powered by a car battery!) designed to keep shrapnel embedded in Tony's chest during his capture from getting into his heart and killing him. Once Stark uses scrap parts to create a miniature atomic reactor to replace his injured pulmonary muscle (this guy makes Mr. Wizard look like George W. Bush!), he gets to work on a very special surprise for his captors... and no, it's not "very special" like that very special episode of the "Fresh Price of Bel-Air" where DJ Jazzy Jeff got AIDS from having unprotected sex with the robot girl from "Small Wonder", or that very special episode of "Blossom" where she and Six celebrated their same sex marriage in Vermont with the big rubber dildo fist her dad bought her as an alternative to having sex with boys.
Tony makes his escape from the Ten Rings' Bed & Breakfast in spectacular fashion thanks to his secret weapon: a suit of high tech (for a scrapyard) armor. After he's picked up by a search & rescue party and returned to the states, he announces that he's finally grown a metaphorical heart (and all it took was the destruction of his literal one) and Stark Enterprises will no longer be manufacturing death dealers. While his business partner Obediah Stane (Jeff Bridges) tries to calm their investors and keep the stock market from shitting in their Lucky Charms, Tony gets busy flirting with his loyal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwenyth Paltrow), keeping his military buddy James Rhodes (Terrence Howard) in the dark (not a race joke, I swear!), and secretly working on another suit of super armor that won't be subject to the inherent fatal failures that come with using Windows Vista as an operating system like his last one did. What could he possibly use his new Sunday Best for? Well, aside from becoming something of an iron golem protector to the downtrodden folks in the Middle East, it'll come in useful in the final act when he has to fight Iron Man's bigger, eviler brother: Iron Monger. What the fuck is the internet? I mean, what the fuck is the Iron Monger? Well, Tony was in such a hurry to get his tin-plated keister out of camel country that he left the designs for his patchwork 1st generation creation behind, which the leader of the Ten Rings passed along to someone who'd rather send flowers to Tony Stark's funeral than have to put him on their Christmas card list this year. Let the "heavy metal" puns rip.
Oh yeah, and if you plan on seeing this flick in a theater, be sure to stay after the credits and check out the little "bonus" scene. I say "in a theater" because anyone who chooses to see bootlegs in the comfort of their own home is familiar with the apparent bootleggers' credo of "get the fuck out of the theater before the lights come up", thus denying their customers important stuff like end credits and the extra scenes that sometimes follow. Be warned if you do stay for the extra scene though: if your only interpretation of the term "Avengers" consists of a hot chick in a cat suit and a dapper chap in a bowler, all you're going to come away from it with is an excuse to try and make your friends laugh by saying "Get this motherfucking eye patch off my motherfucking face!" afterwards.
When it's all said and done, Iron Man is literally one of, if not the best comic book-to-film adaptation I've ever seen. It's doesn't stray as much from its source material as boo-hoo Mary Jane or Power Ranger Green Goblin, it doesn't let the audience down in the action-to-non-action ratio like Brokeback Banner, it doesn't induce snoring like the Last Deadbeat Emo Dad of Krypton, and most importantly: there aren't any Schumacher nipple hard-ons on Iron Man's armor! Woohoo! I wasn't sure if John Favreau could pull off a movie of this size and ambition, but I'm pleasantly surprised to be sitting here now and typing that he can indeed get the job done! Though I am one of the many who thinks he needs to work on making his "big finales" a little, well, BIGGER (the end fight just didn't have the fireworks and loud noises that the finish to a big popcorn flick like this one deserves), Favreau never pops the New Jersey Hello to the character's fans like a Joel Schumacher or a Uwe Boll would. And Iron Man's flight sequences? Beautiful. High velocity while still smooth as butter... or, as I've been calling it ever since I saw Last Tango In Paris: Amish Astroglide.
If you'd told me 10 years ago that I'd pop a hypothetical chubby over a comic book movie starring Robert Downy Junior, Gwenyth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and Terrance Howard, I'd have stomped on your shins and given you a golden shower... I was doing a lot of PCP in those days, so if you ever go back in time and introduce yourself to 1998 Anubis, try to make sure it isn't on a Thursday or a Sunday and try not to mention anything about puppy dogs or hand grenades... As I was saying though, when it comes to movies that I'm determined to see based on who appears in them, these are four names that never come up. Now, maybe I'm reconsidering my stance... I kid you not though, when it came to casting Stark, no one fits the bill better than RDJ. And Bridges? Holy crap. Without giving too much away about his character, let me just say that he makes Obediah one of the most interesting to watch characters of the entire cast. Some people (my Evil Dead Bride included) say that there was too much Paltrow and not enough Howard. I didn't think so. I actually didn't think either was lacking or overdone in the screen time department. Keeping up with the "pleasantly surprised" talk, I thought that Paltrow and Downey actually had good chemistry! I really enjoyed the "Operation" scene between Stark and Pepper specifically. The two had a really good dynamic going on from beginning to end, and normally I'd rather not have to look at Gwenyth Paltrow unless it's her severed head staring back at me from the inside of a box. This is a minor miracle.
It looks like Marvel Studios is serious about not letting their future projects turn into the next Howard the Duck or Nick Fury: Agent of Hasslehoff, and so far so good. I'm actually looking forward to their proposed Ant-Man movie (so long as they can keep Edgar Wright in the director's chair) and with The Incredible Hulk on his way into theaters this weekend, the world is turning into a better place for the Friends of Old Marvel! Come to think of it, with The Dark Knight, Hellboy II, Speed Racer and, to a (MUCH MUCH MUCH) lesser extent, Wanted all out in theaters by the time you read this or imminent for release before Labor Day, this summer more than ever is the Season of the Four-Colors! Funnybook haters, your persecution is at hand...
