SuperSearnold - Comic Book Reviews

Greetings from your friendly neighborhood Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld]. Welcome to my comic book review blog – thanks for tuning in. Today is Thursday, September 25th, 2008.

Today’s Issue:
Okay – it’s not an “issue” per say, so much as it’s a movie. It’s a comic book movie though, so it’s okay. Specifically - it’s Iron Man. I figure I’d give it a review to celebrate its release to DVD.

Premise:
Just in case there has been some sort of odd rift in space/time and you aren’t aware of the premise of Iron Man, there’s a billionaire playboy named Tony Stark who creates a super high tech battle suit and becomes a super hero. The details obviously get a bit more complex - but that’s all you really need to know.

The Awesome Parts:
I loved this movie. So obviously my biases are going to shine through in the review. But I’ll try to think of a few REASONS why the movie was so enjoyable and talk about them objectively. First of all, Robert Downey Jr. is an excellent actor. He captured exactly the image of Tony Stark as I have always imagined him while reading the comic books. He was hilarious while still being serious. He had real vices, but always sought to overcome them. He felt like a real person – even though he’s a super genius billionaire industrialist who owns a weapons manufacturing company and runs around in a high tech battle suit fighting terrorists. I felt the modern adaptation of this story that was written in 1963 was true to the core of the story while not feeling out of date or far fetched for modern audiences. As much as I miss the character Jarvis, having a digital butler was a great touch. Another great part were the special effects. I actually had a friend who worked on the effects for this movie (great job Michael Lester!) The suit looked bad-ass. Everything felt natural and believable. The plot developed naturally out of the characters and their situations. There was great (yet still subtle) sexual tension. It was a wonderfully written and excellently executed film.

The Un-Awesome Parts:
I don’t like the fact that the director – John Favreau – cast himself as Happy Hogan. I’ve never been a fan of the nepotism rule. And while it didn’t matter because of Happy’s small role in this film – I would love to see Happy have larger roles in future Iron Man films, which I imagine would be difficult to accomplish while he’s busy directing. I also had problems with the flashback that they used in the film. The film had a beginning, flashed back to 24 hours earlier, and then resumed. I didn’t see ANY good reason for that flashback. We could have started the movie at the beginning – 24 hours ago – and it would have been just as good. We all knew Tony was going to get captured by terrorists – we’ve all seen the previews. You don’t need to show that scene at the beginning of the movie to build up the suspense. I think there would have actually been better suspense if we DIDN’T know when he was going to get captured, but just had it sprung on us.

My Recommendation:
I want to look at this from the perspective of two types of people: Iron Man comic book fans and everyone else. For Iron Man comic book fans I think this movie will be a thrill ride. You get to see and hear Iron Man – and it looks and sounds like Iron Man. The adaptation was incredible. Everything was very close to the comic books – and there are secret treasures hidden in the film for those of us who catch the references (the name of the terrorist group is The Ten Rings – a reference to Iron Man villain The Mandarin.) From the perspective of everyone else, this is just a GREAT action movie. If you only like romantic comedies, then obviously this movie is not that. But don’t be biased against this movie because it’s a “super hero” film. It is an ACTION film. And it is a well made action film. And it is just as good as any non-super-hero action film. There are incredible battle scenes with some incredibly bad-ass fights. The special effects are stunning. There’s humor to relieve the dramatic tension – which escalates in a natural way to an inevitable climactic battle which Iron Man seems sure to lose. If you enjoy movies like Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, The Fugitive, Men In Black, or Independence Day, then you should enjoy Iron Man.

That’s all for today. Tomorrow I’ll be reviewing the premiere of the new season of Heroes. As always – thanks for reading – see you tomorrow.
-Searnold

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