Dead Cant Rant

Iron Man was an excellent superhero movie. As movies go, it’s not the most dramatic, and there won’t be any Best Actor nominations coming out of it, but it is one hella fun way to spend an hour and a half.

The story was pretty straightforward, as any comic book movie will be. But I was disappointed in the final fight scene, which seemed pretty anti-climactic. After all the technical whiz and special effects leading up to that scene, I guess I expected a more dramatic ending. Maybe it’s just that the ending seemed like a clone of the Incredible Hulk — big giant guy lumbers around, jumps great distances, falls through a hole in the ground and slowly and dramatically crawls out while growling menacingly, etc. I’m sure that same kind of scene will be repeated in the new Hulk movie as well. Yaawn.

Now, I had never heard of the Iron Monger before seeing this movie, so that explains a good bit of my confusion over the whole gigantic-evil-Iron-Man-suit-thing. So with that cleared up it made a bit more sense. What did NOT make sense though was the whole concept of the multi-billion dollar arms manufacturer doing business with Bubba Jihad and the Toothless Brothers in Crackistan. I mean, what the hell was that all about? Why would any company making that kind of money actually want to risk everything by dealing with a bunch of amateurs when there’s real money to be made in places like China, Iran, etc? C’mon Marvel, you gotta do better than make a movie that is only outstanding if the viewer is willing to overlook a tiny issue like the fundamental point of conflict in the whole story. Sheesh.

I also hated the supporting character, the Air Force guy, whats-his-name. I literally couldn’t stand this guy. They were portrayed as friends, but the friendship only appeared to be one-way. Looked more like hero-worship, and undeserving hero-worship at that. And since when does the military host press conferences for commercial companies? You know, a while back there was this Pentagon bigwig thrown in jail for corrupt dealing with Boeing. Again, c’mon Marvel, get your head out of the East coast/West coast mindset and actually try to understand how the world really works here.

He obviously will be in the suit in the second movie (or the third, or fourth, or fifth) because he looked at it and said “maybe next time”. Oh well.

Other than that it was a fun movie to watch. The sequence where Tony builds his armor and tests it was hilarious. Looks like 10% thrust power is more than enough to smash your face in. Heh.

Also, Renee pointed out a wonderful bit: during the entire movie I think one character said “son of a bitch” once, and it was the only foul language we heard. There was no gratuitous sex (just one obvious implied sex scene) and I don’t even recall seeing much blood at all. Any time someone was killed, even in the massacre scenes, it was done off-camera.

Take your kids, they will be blown away and talking about it for a long time after.