Iron man: A well rounded film. (No Spoilers)
Written: May 02 '08 (Updated Feb 18 '09)
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Well done writing, good pacing, good special effects
Cons: They had Burger King instead of In-N-Out Burger
The Bottom Line: Iron Man is a well rounded action movie.
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| yakkowarner's Full Review: Iron Man |
Awesome, awesome movie. Well done in every department (except music but that at least wasn't a major distraction.) The real strength is the story. The story is the main focus of this movie. Not the action, not the special effects, not the suit, just the story. So I think this is a movie for a wide range of people, which is not always the case for movies in this category.
The writing of Iron Man is the true strength of the film. First off the movie is funny, really funny in spots. Some of it predictable (but still funny), some of it not. No it is not a comedy so don't worry about busting out your new stitches.
The writing tells the story of a man that is driven to be successful. He finds success in building new technology (like weapons), getting the girls, and living the rich life. He is loaded. But as the story progresses you notice that he is troubled and a little empty. He doesn't really have anyone, his whole life is his work, he doesn't seem to have a hobby. So he does not seem to have a normal healthy life. You really feel for him and the writing does a great job bringing those character traits (character building).
Character building for the other characters is fine too but not as much. With one of the main characters they only let you see just enough to get you to the next scene. Why, well because if you knew too much it would spoil the surprise. Lets me just say I that there is a mystery aspect to this movie that the audience needs to figure out. All is not as it seems in this movie. And as the layers are peeled away, more and more is revealed. I love it when movie writers do this, it adds to the mystery and intrigue.
The pacing is about as slow as you can go, yet still keep the audience engaged. This is not a pure action flick like I was hoping. Ya I know, I like gratuitous violence from time to time, this movie ain't it. But it did have 4 key action sequences in the movie that were well done plus plenty and intense scenes through out the movie to keep you on the edge of your seat. I really can't complain about the pacing because good pacing is a balancing act and they balanced all of the necessary requirements well.
The movie is rated PG-13 due to violence and one very brief sex scene with no nudity and no erotic motion. Lots of people did die but the deaths were not overly graphic. What was graphic was the makeup on some of the actors, the blood, cuts, and wounds looked real. So I would only take teenagers or a very mature older child.
The music of Iron Man was not that impressive. Probably the lowest point of the movie for me. It wasn't until the last quarter of the movie did I realized that there was nothing in the musical score that really pulled my emotions, made me really excited, or made me cry. This alone moved the grade down half a letter. James Horner where were you?
Jeff Bridges, in my opinion, is one of the finer actors in Hollywood. He did an outstanding job in this movie playing the role of mentor/partner to Tony Stark. At the beginning of the movie I didn't immediately recognize who he was and parts of the movie I forgot it was Jeff. Even though he has such a memorable voice, I was able to forget who he was and fall into the fantasy world for a few minutes here and there and believe he was someone other than Jeff Bridges. Hands down, he was the best actor in the film.
Robert Downey Jr. played the lead, Tony Stark/Iron Man. He also did a great job. The core of his character did not change throughout the movie but you could tell there was a change after his “experience”. He pulled it off well.
Gwyneth Paltrow did an ok job, nothing special though. She had a relatively small role for what she could have had, she was the love interest and all. She also just did not show a lot of depth in her acting skill. It was a bit of a disappointment, lets just blame it all on the director.
The special effects were good, but nothing great in this era we live in. They did not trump the story which is good, but they could have done so much more with the action scenes they did film. It seemed to me like they had a small budget and special effects were were one of the first to go. But to their credit, I had a HARD time figuring out what was CG and what was real. I really wasn't sure most of the time.
About the movie studio
The movie studio is a new studio called Marvel Studios. They have started out with two movies this summer and 550 million in the bank. Not sure where it came from of the business end of things, but from where I sit it doesn't look like a lot of money. Now my big complaint about the movie is that there was not a lot of special effects in the movie. I really hungered for a lot more in the film, and there was plenty of space to add it. So I really scratched my head wondering why they didn't. Well a friend informed me of this new movie studio, I put two and two together and my guess is that they had a limited budget for this movie. Guess I can't blame them too much. But I well when the next one comes out in 2010 (and they better delay it if they don't get it right, take a cue from blizzard.)
The key players of Iron Man
Director: Jon Favreau.
Writers: Matt Holloway, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, & Art Marcum.
Source writers: Jack Kirby & Stan Lee.
Music: Ramin Djawadi.
Ratings:
Yahoo Users: A-
Yahoo critics summary: B+
My rating: I give it a 4.63
Rated:PG-13
Why the rating and recommendation
This is a movie that I feel will appeal to a wide range of people. It has a little bit of everything. But more importantly it is well written, something that a lot of superhero movies are not these days. I recommend checking it if you're a mature child or adult.
Other reviews.
My 10 favorite Sci-fi
X-Men
V Is For Vendetta
BTW, Stay all the way through to the end of the credits. :)
Recommended:
Yes
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