Iron Man was... well, it was okay, you know.

Cafe Society
1

Saw “Iron Man” today.

Gosh, I was a bit let down. I mean, it’s wasn’t BAD, but it wasn’t fantastic, y’know? A lot of setup and not enough ass-kicking. Robert Downey Jr. was fantastic, but Gwyneth Paltrow was just unbelievably bad - which might have been the fault of Jon Favreau, I don’t know - the movie was technically proficient but uninspired, and the plot was like something generated by a program called “Superhero Movie Script For Windows.”

Overall it was pretty cool and I’m glad I saw it but I won’t bother to see it again. I must have missed something, because everyone else seems to think it was the shiznit.

2

That’s pretty much what I thought of the movie, although I did like Paltrow. The action parts were good, but the origin story dragged and the parts between action scenes were pretty boring. I give it about a 7 out of 10. Like most super-hero movies, the second installment will be better.

3

We’ve already done this thread, but I got on board late and never commented there so I might as well do it here.

You guys are nuts. I loved this movie. I agree that the backstory was somewhat drawn out and the action scenes were limited but that’s precisely why I thought it was so much better than most Comic Book Movies. In my opinion, the problem with many Comic Book Movies is that people confuse them with Action movies. Comic Book Movie != Action Movie. The Comic Book movies that are primarily Action films are usually pretty flimsy on the character and depth. Iron Man succeeded for me because they took the time to fully develop the main characters and they didn’t resort to a glut of over-done action sequences and a litany of paper-thin bad guys of irrational motivation.

I loved Robert Downey Jr in that role and the flying sequences absolutely kicked ass. Jeff Bridges was just about perfect in his role as the Iron Monger and his motivations were pretty logical and believable. Paltrow was a cardboard cut-out but she was no worse than Kirsten Dunst in Spiderman. I want to be Tony Stark.

Overall I felt that Favreau used a fairly light hand in directing this and steered it away from Michael Bay-ism which is a huge accomplishment in my book. Best Comic Book movie ever for this guy.

4

What comic books are you reading? All the superhero comics I’ve read are flimsy paper-thin excuses for leaping around blasting the bad guys.

5

I agree, nice assessment, although what GuanoLad said has merit, too. This is why *Iron Man * kinda had me thinking of how I enjoyed the first Batman movie, because it achieves a great balance between being character-driven and sheer action.

BTW, I just watched the Fantastic Four Silver Surfer, and yep, just as lame as the first one!

6

Agree with those praising Iron Man.

The reason so many “bad” hero movies are bad is because they spend too much time on ass-kicking and not enough time on getting the audience to care who wins.

Example 1:

Human Torch doing his moto-X crap in FF? Lame. Uber-lame. I honestly didn’t care.

But, when Tony is zooming over the Santa Monica Pier and he’s having the time of his life, I’m right there with him- I’m laughing and internally wahoo-ing because I know Tony enough to identify with him, because I’ve got more of his character in my head by that point than I ever did in two movies’ worth of Johnny Storm.
Example 2:

The long exposition scene of Reed working on some machine to “fix” Ben? I don’t care. I so TOTALLY don’t care. I “know” Reed’s a genius from my comic-book knowledge and a couple of throwaway lines. But there’s no sense of urgency there.

The scene of Tony building his mini-arc-generator from missile parts, while certainly established by the throwaway exposition scenes in the beginning, is built on throughout the movie, particularly when they show him agonizing and actually appearing to WORK through glitches on his armor.

Furthermore, I’m willing to admit that these two series are basically cinematically identical in what they are designed to establish and how they establish it, but at those points in both movies, I actually CARED about Tony and all I wanted out of Reed was for him to stretch his hand over to me and gimme my damn money back.
By the time the action scenes came around, I was invested in them. And the anticipation helped me enjoy them. That’s due to character development, not CGI.

7

My problem with the character development is that I didn’t like Tony Stark at the beginning of the film, and continued to dislike him throughout the film, even when he turned into a good guy. Not enough redemption for me.

With more time spent on that, maybe I’d like it. But everything moved so quickly. Apparently a lot of time passed in the middle of the movie, but it was hard to measure it. Somehow a giant robot got built, and though it appeared to be built literally overnight, I assume we’re supposed to think six months or more had passed. I got a little taken out of the movie while I tried to figure that out.

And finally, I thought Pepper Potts should never have fallen for Tony, as once a self-absorbed jerk, always a self-absorbed jerk.

And the effects were only so-so.

8

Tony Stark is an asshole. Even in the comic books. Comic books are a rather odd medium - they DO get all angsty and their characters are often complex.

(GuanoLad - there is a point mid suit testing where Tony says something like “Day 7, test 36” to place you in time - it does move “only in the movies” fast though.)

I liked it. I did wonder whether Gwenth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr got along on set though.

9

I see what you did there; that’s clever. :wink:

10

I read a lot of non-superhero comics, but since you specified superhero, hows about Watchmen? First example I thought of, and it’s gonna be a movie, so it should fit your criteria, non?

11

An exception, notable for its singularity.

12

Nope, noted for its primacy.
Astro City, in all its glory.
PS238.
Ex Machina.
Banana Sunday.
X-Men: First Class.
Wolverine: First Class.
Heck, Ultimate Spider-Man. Not about beating up the bad guy. It’s all about watching Peter Parker.
Booster Gold.
Formerly Known As The Justice League.
Ambush Bug.
Secret Six

Trust me, the fights are not why people read these comics.

13

Does V count? He’s more into mindfucking the baddies, although he does cause some explosions.

How about Morrison’s Batman in Arkham Asylum? Hell, he’s just trying to keep his sanity.

Most of what I read wouldn’t fly in movie form for the express reason that people want to see the good guys in highly visual conflicts with the villains.

Not trying to pick a fight with you, GuanoLad, but comics is one of my favorite geek passions (although I’m still learning) so I wanted to throw out a different perspective. :slight_smile:

14

Yeah, comics are more of soap opera formula for nerds, what with characters continually returning from the dead, bizarre and conincidental relations, implausible emotional arcs, et cetera.

I’m not a big fan of comic book movies, but I thought that Iron Man was certainly better than the average, albeit in no small part because Robert Downey Jr. could be entertaining just eating breakfast and riffing off of the smoked salmon. Although it followed the trend of starting out with an origin story (which can be a real drag on pacing, as evidenced by the otherwise servicable but humorless Batman Begins), it made even that part of the story interesting rather than trite and obligatory. The SFX work was in the service of the story without being overdone or looking fake, and the development sequences added humor and pathos rather that just being an obligatory prerequisite. I especially like the nearly lethal first flight of the Iron Man II suit; he lands on the upper deck of his house, only to find that it won’t support the considerable weight of the suit, and crashes through to the basement, giving both humor and some sense of connection to real physics.

As for the fight scenes, I thought they were just about perfect in length and pacing. Fights that go on endlessly have to become more and more exaggerated until they become a meaningless collage of patent superheroisms that the viewer doesn’t even connect with or care about (see Hulk or Spiderman III for example), whereas in Iron Man they’re relatively brief and (in the final fight scene) the hero is vulnerable.

As for the characterization, Stark is supposed to be unlikable, an arrogant if technically gifted playboy asshole; hence, why Downey is the perfect actor to play the character. And I’d guess that any attempt to follow the comic story line will result in an increasingly unlikable and despairing character. Stane was suitably greasy while seemingly paternal, which was well done by Bridges. And superhero Girl Fridays are typically pretty thinly drawn, but Paltrow did an at least acceptable job of the role, being neither gratingly whiny (Katie Holmes, Kate Bosworth) nor annoyingly wooden (Kirsten Dunst, Jennifer Connolly). And she’s also very fetching as a strawberry blonde.

I enjoyed it (except for the pair of three year olds behind me–seriously, who brings three year olds to the cinema, much less a PG-13 movie?) and I’m more critical than average of big budget popcorn movies. It had a coherent story, not-overused special effects, appropriate and unforced humor, some great dialogue (“Give me a Scotch. I’m starving.”) and a guy in a flying red and gold suit. It’s not a cinematic milestone, to be certain, but worthy of two hours of my life.

Stranger

15

I felt much the same as the OP about the Iron Man movie. There were parts that just seemed to drag on and on (I was particularly unfond of the last “Stane and Stark in the living room” scene). It also had the kind of ending I really dislike…

It’s probably just me, but I really dislike when the “hero” of the movie is not the one to perform the ultimate action that takes out the bad guy. The climax of Iron Man comes while Tony is hanging on for dear life, and his assistant is the one who actually pushes the button. My preference is always to have the hero be the one who wins the battle with the support of his allies. I guess it make it murky as to who the real hero of the story is, and makes me wonder why I should have been rooting for the good guy in the first place if he’s too wussy to solve the problem himself… shrug

Of course, this comes from the guy who absolutely LOVED the Speed Racer film, so what do I know… :stuck_out_tongue:

JOhn.

16

Depends on how you look at it. Pepper was only following orders; it was Stark’s idea to blow the reactor, and he made her hit the button while he was in the danger zone, which displays a certain heroic selflessness. She didn’t take any initiative, only acted as his agent. It should fit your preference perfectly; he won with her support.

17

No, that doesn’t really work for me.

He was essentially out of the fight. The hero essentially lost. She stepped up to become the surrogate hero. If she had found a plug or a button that would have supercharged the suit for him to give one last surprise punch, that would have worked for me.

It’s an odd hang-up, I am perfectly willing to admit, but it’s one I have whether it’s a movie, a book (Brin is a flagrant offender), or any other form of popular entertainment.

JOhn.

18

When talking about superheroes only DC and Marvel count. I know comic geeks absolutely hate this fact, but for 99% of the viewing public it’s the only truth they know. I can’t imagine seeing Watchman as a movie. It was designed to be read.

As for IM, I just saw the movie today and I liked it more than I expected. It did a bunch of things right that most comic book movies don’t, and that I bet the sequel will also get wrong.

First, the movie was about Tony Stark, somebody who puts on the suit on when absolutely necessary, rather than a whiz bang off we go into the CGI/FX horror that was the Spider-Man mess. I liked him from the start. He had more presence in a single line than Tobey Maguire did in the whole movie.

Second, Pepper Potts was a far better character than the one who was introduced in 1964. You may not remember what a horrible cliche she was and I don’t know if she’s in current continuity but in IM she was a whole person, even if her part was too scanted to make her very real.

Third, they kept to one super bad guy. That’s always a flaw in the sequels, when the bad guys (and often the good guys) have to double with each new movie and the personality is diluted eight ways. Sure, Tony fought one ordinary bad guy before Stane, but they didn’t gang up on him or cut between them plotting their crimes and telling their backstories or the other boring stuff that ruins most sequels. (See the original Batman II, III, & IV.)

Fourth, the battle scenes were clear. You could figure out who was doing what to whom, rather than having a bad blur of special effects. They even came up with a clever way to show both Stark’s and Stane’s faces at the end so we weren’t going mask to mask.

Much better than usual comic book movie, IMO. Compared to this the Hulk trailer shown before IM made me want to grab one of his blasters and lay waste to the movie screen. (And it was still a hundred times better than the Mike Myers fiasco, but that’s for another thread.)

19

I thought it was really good. As usual, you have to ignore the implausabilities and go along for the ride. Downey made a great Tony Stark, and Paltrow was fine as the unfortunately named Pepper Potts. (Seriously, they could have changed the name.)

I had the opposite reaction to the way the bad guy was defeated.

One thing I don’t like in movies is when the hero has the crap stomped out of him for ten minutes, is clearly broken and badly injured, and then, through some superhuman effort, starts fighting as though he’d just had a month of r&r. In this movie, Iron man clearly lost, and stayed lost. Fortunately he had a plan B..

One thing I didn’t like was the Austin Powers part. “Before I kill you, let me explain my motives and plans in great detail. And now you’re dying, but rather than make sure you’re dead, I’ll just wander off.” I kept waiting for Seth Greene to show up yelling, “Dad, I’ve got a gun in my room! Let me get it. It’ll take two minutes!”

But that was the only really annoying thing in the movie. They did everything else right. Find actors who can bring the alter ego to life, don’t cram three movies of story into one (Daredevil, spiderman, X3), do a good job with fighting and special effects. I liked the models and the restrained CGI. For once a movie that didn’t look like a cartoon!

20

It’s one of the best superhero movies I’ve ever seen. Robert Downey’s Tony Stark is a fascinating character – a charming asshole with a heart of gold. He’s brilliant and disfunctional and loveable and annoying all at the same time. The fight scenes are great, but the character moments blow most other superhero movies out of the water.

Here’s an example: Near the end Tony is talking to Pepper about the future of their relationship. He mentions the night they danced together and it’s clear that he remembers it as a moment of special emotional connection that hopefully will lead to something bigger. She says something like “Oh, yeah, the night that you went off to get me a drink and never came back.” And it’s clear that she remembers it completely differently. For her it was a moment where she let her guard down and allowed himself to love him and he went and demonstrated that he was too selfish to love her back. And as she says it you can watch Tony realize that he blew it and he didn’t even realize he was blowing it. It’s a really beautiful satisfying character moment and Downey and Paltrow pull it off perfectly.