Loud & Clear

Iron Man- thumbs up

Saw Iron Man this week with Jen, Dave MacNeill and Paul Haugen. Was looking forward to it as it is Marvel Entertainment’s first movie they self produced, with only distribution from a major studio. This gave them complete creative control so we don’t end up with Ang Lee’s version of The Hulk and, of course, all the profit in their pockets instead of a studio’s. Makes sense. If you create the character, why not make sure it turns out exactly as you want it AND get paid for it.

That said, I thought the movie was really good- thumbs up. Robert Downey Jr. is perfect in the role of Tony Stark. As with most comics, there’s a great moral in the story. In Iron Man, Tony Stark learns the weapons he’s built his career on actually destroy lives and discovers that a life of purpose trumps a life of indulgence.

This story doesn’t have quite the level of deep character conflict I’ve come to love from the Spiderman franchise, but it does allow us to keep the fun side of Tony Stark we like. Director Jon Favreau (of Elf fame) redeems himself from his prior comic book hero movie venture Daredevil. There are a few things I could complain about as a movie “purist” I didn’t care for in his directing style (I’ll fill you in if anyone of you asks about them), but there were enough fantastic scenes to make up for the slights.

One complaint to Marvel though. I’ve watched the trailer to the new Hulk movie they have coming with Edward Norton as Bruce Banner and it appears that both Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk are both using the exact same plot device to drive the story. I find that very disappointing. Your first two movies as an independent studio and you use the same trick in both flicks. From a company that is at its core creative, I find this very uncreative, even reprehensible.

Doesn’t mean I won’t be in line to see The Incredible Hulk. I mean, come on. It’s The Incredible Hulk. I hope they use the piano score from the TV show.