The Life & Times of a Hypothetical Dead Man
From some idiots who fought with electric swords comes the story of one gimpy-lookin’ man on a quest for stabby justice. Or such is my understanding – it may turn out that justice isn’t his bag at all. The important things to note are gimpiness and stabbing, and I think we can all agree that those are some top-notch things.
The post title implies that I’m going to link to at least two trailers so… here, go watch Heath Ledger being cool again.
over the past few days have distracted me from GTA IV (which is so much fun, I’m serious you guys).
Firstly: good podcast on Friday. Nordies!
Secondly: the new Dark Knight trailer was put up yesterday. There are some things in it that I maybe didn’t strictly speaking want to know, so you might want to avoid it. It occurred to me after watching it that I had decided, more than a year ago when the first teaser came out, that I didn’t want to find out too much, but that seems to have fallen by the wayside. In my defence, they are throwing down a pretty relentless campaign.
Thirdly: a new Nine Inch Nails album was released today as a free download. The first few tracks are not necessarily anything special (I’m undecided) but it gets very good. Includes spiffy post-apocalyptic triptych.
Coming soon: original material!
ohmygodgtaissomuchfun ok ok, to the matter at hand: Last night, thanks to the independently adjudicated generosity of one David Maybury, I was at the movies.ie preview of Iron Man. Capsule review: very cool.
It occurred to me yesterday that Iron Man is essentially the Marvel Batman: no superpowers to speak of, but he gets by on his ingenuity, determination and fabulous wealth. I can imagine Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne being drinking buddies. Or at least, I can imagine Robery Downey Jr and Christian Bale being drinking buddies. That is a cocktail party I would gladly attend.
Anyway… my point is, Iron Man is a hero I can get behind.
As everyone assumably knows by now, RDJ makes a perfect Tony Stark. Some people, myself included, worried that the eventual transformation into Iron Man and the attendant action extravaganziaaa would take away from the charming brilliance of the character as seen in the trailer. This is not remotely the case. If you’re sceptical… well, just wait until you see the amazing comedy double act that is Robert Downey Jr and a fire extinguisher.
Where it succeeds most of all is in its subtlety. The Spiderman and X-Men films beat you over the head with spectacle and hammy emotion, but this is much more finely tuned. There’s just the right amount of (very well shot and choreographed) action and just the right amount of character development. The film is aware of the wider Iron Man/Marvel mythology, but it brings it in gradually and realistically rather than just throwing in some nudge-wink moments. And in a supremely tasteful move, it puts the insert sequel here moment at least twenty minutes from the end.
Finally: watch out for the Stan Lee cameo. It’s a good one.
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