Iron Man (2008)

We were weeks late coming to the party and completely unable to get away from the hype in the media, but it didn't matter. Because when the Missus and I finally took our seats and saw IRON MAN, it was like I hadn't read a single review, hadn't seen a single commercial or trailer. Combining the big bang of summer spectacle with snappy dialog and terrific acting, IRON MAN manages to somehow be all things to all people: a fanboy's delight, a delicious serving of eye candy for the ladies, and most importantly (especially after the dearth of quality last year) a truly good summer film.

The Internet's strewn with hundreds of professional and amateur reviews, analysis, and theories as to what makes IRON MAN so great, and the vast majority seem to settle on two major points: the casting and performance of Robert Downey jr. and the inspired choice of Jon Favreau for the director's chair. Downey jr. brings a sense of his own history to the project as Tony Stark, the billionaire genius weapons manufacturer who is violently abducted by terrorists and forced to build a new super missile he was developing for the Army. Forced to confront the fact that his decisions in life have not only brought this situation upon himself, but that the very destruction going on in the world is made possible by his "contributions" to society, Stark's decision to become a superhero feels for the first time in a "superhero" movie earned. I love BATMAN BEGINS, and I love Christian Bale's performance, but where I think IRON MAN wins out (barely) is its ability to have you completely understand Stark's motivations and drive to turn from one life to another. Much of this success is attributable to Downey jr.'s performance - you get all the quirks, humor, and physicality that he's embodied in his best performances (CHAPLIN, KISS KISS BANG BANG, LESS THAN ZERO) but behind that lies the experiences of the first act of the movie, and the revelations that drive him to do what he now must do.

The rest of the cast succeeds in much the same way - instead of A-list celebrities you get consummate actors who can dive into their roles. After being slightly surprised at how high Terence Howard's voice was, his support role as Jim "Rhodey" Rhodes doesn't try to steal scenes or play a bigger part than it needs to - it's the very definition of support, and plays well for an inevitably larger role in the sequel. Jeff Bridges is always great - he gets my vote for best fictional President (in THE CONTENDER). His is another functional part, and he plays it with relish, never quite going over the line. You have no doubt as to where his path will eventually go, but when it does it still manages to surprise and bring some substance rather than typical scenery chewing. And color me crazy, but this has been the best thing I've seen Gwenneth Paltrow do in forever. The chemistry between Pepper Potts and Tony is ridiculously palpable, and their banter and relationship feels like it's been going on for years. The choices made as to what's seen on screen and what's implied work wonderfully, and you hav to feel that had this been handled by lesser hands, we would have had a much less believeable romance.

So let's talk about those hands. Despite having his biggest directing success with Wil Ferrel and ELF, my fondest image of Favreau's directing work is the robot attack in the underrated ZATHURA. In that one sequence all doubts and issues about how he could handle a film like this should have been put aside. He's got the character cred from movies like SWINGERS and MADE, and has consistently gone on record about preferring to go practical over CGI as much as possible so long as it serves the film. It's these choices that make the effects in IRON MAN so great, and also what make those effects and sequences blend so nicely with the character-driven moments.

And when he does pull out all the stops and let the action do the talking, it's breath taking. The scenes of Tony Stark perfecting his MKII suit are hilarious until the moment the suit stands ready and visible for the first time, and everyone on the audience gasps. It's incredible, and one of my favorite moments in the movie. But it still pales to the first time we see the suit with its familiar paint job. Iron Man lands in the middle of a village where the people are in the process of being victimized by the very terrorists who originally abducted Tony. Iron Man's landing, and subsequent rising up for the fist time as a hero is one of the best comic book movie images since Christopher Reeve flew onto the scene in that red cape.

This appears to be the Summer of the Superhero (THE INCREDIBLE HULK, THE DARK KNIGHT, HELLBOY II and WANTED all come out in the next few months), and the first time Marvel has taken the reins on its properties. IRON MAN proves to be a pretty high benchmark for the others to reach - let's hope they get there.

Book #25: Jigsaw

Ed McBain is always a fast read, but I didn't think when I opened Jigsaw this morning around 6:30 AM that I'd have it finished by 10:30 AM. I think the steady diet of comic books I've been living on for most of the month finally crashed - I'm already 100 pages into my next books and feel like there's no end in sight.

Jigsaw is yet another entry in the fantastic 87th Precinct novels that focuses on a squad of detectives and their various lives, both on the case and off. A burglary that ends in a double homicide looks clean-cut until Detectives Carella and Brown find a fragment of a photograph clutched in one of the dead men's hands. Shaped like a jigsaw puzzle, it's one of eight fragments that give the location of $750,000 stolen from a Savings & Loan six years earlier. The situation becomes more complicated when it turns out the detectives aren't the only ones looking for the other puzzle pieces, and unfortunately that other person is killing anyone and everyone who gets in their way.

I won't lie and say that this is anything new - even within the series it's lies somewhere in the middle. But I've yet to read a McBain book that didn't have a way with language, both in the dialog and in the description. One noticeable difference in Jigsaw is the language is beginning to get a little rougher - this was written in 1970 and the profanity and sexual coarseness seems to have been ratcheted up a bit. Fine book overall, if not one of the best in the series, and a breath of fresh air after what feels like dozens of capes and cowls.

Book #24: The Zombie Survival Guide

I'm going to lie and say that The Zombie Survival Guide is a great book. Max Brooks takes your standard Boy Scout handbook and makes an enjoyable tongue-in-cheek guide for, as the subtitle suggests, "complete protection from the living dead."

The zombie menace stems from a mysterious virus known as Solanum, the origin of which is unknown. Besides that, the rest of the zombie lore is firmly rooted in George A. Romero territory, and Brooks goes to great lengths to make his guide feel as real as possible. Although there are a few scattered jokes, everything is aimed to mimic a practical reference guide. Even the illustrations look like the type you woudl find adorning a safety sheet in an airplane.

It's fun, it's lightweight reading, and if you enjoy zombies, you'll probazbly enjoy this. For my money, I would rather go for Brook's second book, World War Z, which throws away the kitsch for something more substantial.

Scalzi's New Sci-Fi Classics

He's a man of many hats. Besides being a great writer and pioneering blogger, John Scalzi is also now a weekly columnist for American Movie Classics' SciFi Scanner, a site dedicated to "science fiction movies, news, and discussion." His most recent column discusses the results of the American Film Institute's Top 10 Science Fiction Movies, noting that the choices stop after 1991.

Were there any great science fiction films after 1991? Scalzi thinks so, and has decided to make a Top 10 List comprised of films after '91. The catch? He'll list five of his - the rest are up to you.

Here's the link to his original post. My additions to the list are below:

1. DARK CITY - Between this and THE CROW, Alex Proyas has done more for black leather outfits than a million S&M shops. Intelligent, great effects, and beautifully shot with the wackiest Kiefer Sutherland performance not captured by police video.
2. PRIMER - Yeah, it doesn't really scream "Excitement" but the strength of PRIMER lies in its ability to treat time travel in a unique fashion and not simply use it as a crutch to keep a plot from crumbling.
3. MINORITY REPORT - It's between this and BLADE RUNNER for Best Film Made of of a PKD story. Not as in "closest adaptation" but as "this is a great film that happens to have come from a PKD story." Does anyone do ideas and action combined better than Steven Spielberg?
4. THE FOUNTAIN - One of the most visually stunning films to come out in the past 10 years. A wonderful love story stretched across time, I include this because visually it's something we hadn't seen in a long time.
5. CITY OF LOST CHILDREN - It's a fairy tale stuck inside a rusty coating of steam punk SF. It's got Ron Perlman. It's got evil Siamese twins. It's got the cutest, most precocious kids you'll find outside of the Little Rascals. It's French. I adore this movie.

I left out superhero movies from my list, just because I feel like that's a genre unto itself (and I shudder for actually using "unto" in a sentence). So even though I love Scalzi's list, I'd replace THE INCREDIBLES (which WOULD make my top 5 superhero movies of all time) and replace it with Brad Bird's IRON GIANT. Best 1950's SF movie to be made after the 1950's.

Other films that could have easily made the list? SERENITY (though I prefer the show to the movie), CONTACT (thanks for the reminder, Jason), and as a lot of others mentioned in their comments, GALAXY QUEST. I can forgive Tim Allen a hundred SANTA CLAUS sequels on the basis of this movie.

Anyone got anything to add? Disagree? Access Scalzi's article and fire away.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

The INDIANA JONES series of films are inextricably tied into my youth, much the same way STAR WARS was. I recall sitting in the back row with my friend Terry Brennan when our elementary school had a special screening of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK we had to get permission from our parents to attend, completely swept away as the Paramount Logo dissolved into an ominous mountain peak. I remember cutting off the end of my jump rope to make a whip and wearing my grandfather's fedora, fighting off jungle natives and crossing raging rivers in order to get to safety. Sure, the jungle was a weeping willow tree and the raging river was the small creek behind my house, but you get the idea.

The biggest gamble for me going into INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL was, would I be able to view it with the eyes of the young boy who grew up with these movies, or would my older, more knowledgeable and (sadly) more cynical eyes be too busy picking out issues to enjoy the film?

Turns out the answer's a little bit of both.

So let's get the basics out of the way. Yes, I liked it. There's more than a few inspired moments that feel exactly like an INDIANA JONES movie should feel - that combination of boyish exuberance and gee-whiz action that's not only a staple of the previous films, but of the serial adventure stories from the 30's that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg sought to emulate. For the most part the acting is great: after a rocky start Harrison Ford completely makes Dr. Henry Jones, jr. come alive in a way that's not ridiculous (with one MASSIVE exception I'll get to). The sheepish grin, the stubble, everything works. He plays an Indiana getting on in years, still capable of daring escapes and beating the bad guys, but with a weary sense that he'd rather be lecturing on field archeology and ideograms. Supporting roles by Jim Broadbent and John Hurt are short but wonderful, especially Hurt, who I can watch in anything and would have loved to see in a meatier role. And although I'm sure I'll part ways with a lot of people, Shia LaBeouf was fantastic. His interplay with Ford, his demeanor, look (I'm assuming here that the overt WILD ONE reference was an intentional wink), everything (again, with one MASSIVE exception I'll get to) worked great. He's not Short Round, and he's not supposed to be.

And since it's pretty much common knowledge that she's in the film, let's spend a brief moment talking about Karen Allen. Marion's back. It's not a huge role, but it's an important one. There's a scene where she, Indy, and Shia (playing a character named "Mutt" Williams - figure it out) are tied up in the back of a military vehicle heading into the Amazon. All three are arguing while simultaneously trying to escape. Finally Indy gets free and as he's attempting to climb to the top of the truck is stopped by a question from Marion. His response, uttered in typical Indy fashion as he scrabbles through a hole in the tarp, leaves a beaming smile on her face that instantly transported me back to 1982. It was that smile, the smile that explained everything - who she is and what it was that could snag the heart of someone like Indiana Jones. It was frickin' beautiful.

So what else worked? Spielberg proves that no one can string an action sequence together like he can, and when allowed free reign, he's perfect. There's a motorcycle chase through a college campus that ranks up with any of the set pieces from the earlier movies. There's a lot of play off the earlier movies and it when it works (like the great "snake" moment) it's priceless.

Or almost priceless. Because as great as those scenes are, they unfortunately don't remove the bad taste of others. Excepting the very beginning logo/driving sequence, the entire opening of the film felt lifeless. There are some serious lighting/set issues at work here: why, after an establishing shot outside an airplane hanger would we so obviously move to a sound stage when all they're doing is standing outside talking? Between the pale, almost purple lighting and the lack of any background detail it looks ridiculous, and for the life of me I'm stymied as to why Spielberg couldn't have shot that scene outside. This follows a pattern where you get a wide shot of an exterior or a model, and then cut immediately to a sound stage, so suddenly you can feel the ropes and chairs just out of frame. I know the other films were sometimes guilty of this; I can't watch TEMPLE OF DOOM without commenting on the different colored lights in the mine shaft. But here (the opening) it's just unnecessary.

And speaking of TEMPLE OF DOOM, a lot of people make comparisons of SKULL to DOOM, saying it's merely an additional adventure without furthering the overall Indy mythos, like THE PAST CRUSADE did. Without giving away key storylines or plot points, I would argue the exact opposite: both CRYSTAL SKULL and LAST CRUSADE are essentially silly adventures with a familial element thrown in to tie the two together. In both cases it felt (to me) that the family pieces was the window dressing that added to the adventure. Great window dressing to be sure, but dressing nonetheless. I also admit to having a soft spot for TEMPLE DOOM - it's been unfairly maligned for too long now! The "Anything Goes" opening sequence is brilliant. In fact, I would say that CRYSTAL SKULL has the weakest opening of the series so far.

Now on to the two "Raft" moments in the film. The two moments that so severely stretch the limits of belief you're left wondering how could Spielberg let that slide? And while I don't want to automatically wag the finger at Lucas, it's hard not to make a prequel reference. If you've already seen the movie you know what two scenes I'm referring to. If you haven't, one involves a refrigerator and one involves CGI monkeys. For completely different reasons, both scenes feel hollow and completely out of spirit for the film. It's easy to blame the monkey scene (involving Shia) on Lucas: once you see it you'll see what I mean. The good news is that it goes by pretty fast, and you don't have to recall it afterwards.

But the refrigerator episode, along with what follows, was far more damaging to the film, because it asks you to change your impression of Indiana Jones, and to accept a vague backstory about his time between LAST CRUSADE and now that feels completely at odds with how he was established as a character in the movies. Forget the television show, I don't want to be told that these things were hinted at there - the show is a separate entity than the films, and that sounds like weak justification to me.

Despite some pretty large problems (and I haven't even talked about the somewhat iffy script), I'm going to go back to my original thought. There is a lot of fun here. You can't dismiss the entire film (or claim "they killed my youth" a la the STAR WARS prequels) based on those shortcomings because there are simply too many things here that do work, and that are fun, and that pay perfect homage to the films that came before. See it for Marion. See it for the motorcycle chase. See it for a definition of quicksand. See it for Harrison Ford, who ably steps back into the old leather jacket and shows us a hero that is both all too human and larger than life.

See it because it's a damn INDIANA JONES movie, and you want to remember those days in your backyard, reaching for the idol with the bag for your recorder filled with dirt.