Iron Balls
This last weekend I went with Zinsk and his awesome wife to see Marvel Comic's Iron Man movie and it was great fun. In the interest of full disclosure I will tell you that I am a serious comic book fanboy and will most likely go to see EVERY superhero movie Marvel, DC and Hollywood chooses to make. Yep, I will go to them all, no matter how craptacular. This does not mean I will love them all, on the contrary, I can still smell the Punisher stinking it up as we speak, it just means I will pay my money and cling to hope that they won't destroy the souls of my beloved superheroes. I will go every time, full of optimism that Ben Affleck would not possibly dare show up in another superhero flick, and that Joel Schumacher will never be allowed within a mile of any Batman related material ever again.
Iron Man did not disappoint, as a matter of fact it totally rocked. Iron man should be a template for future Marvel cinematic ventures, it has heart, great action and a true sense of humor. The people at Marvel seemed to have changed their approach and decided to hire real writers, good actors and a director with some vision. For this movie Marvel got Jon Favreau to direct and it paid off! That's right, the guy who made "Elf"...yeah, "Elf". It is a little ironic that the man who co-starred in the absolute worst superhero movie ever ("Daredevil") would go on to direct one of the best. Maybe it is not irony, maybe he felt like he had to make things right with us. Regardless, he turned out to be the right man at the right time.
Jon Favreau did such a fine job at the helm of Iron Man that I will forget that he had any hand in "Made" and I'm willing now to forget his run on "Friends" as Monica's billionaire boyfriend and UFC fighter wannabe. Iron Man is full of humor and attitude and good fun, Robert Downey Jr. is excellent as "billionaire playboy industrialist" Tony Stark, in fact I cannot imagine anyone better for the role. Downey Jr. brought a level of sass to this movie that all past superhero movie makers should study and respectfully imitate in the future. The people that make these flicks seem to think that these movies need to be so very somber and dark, but now maybe they will understand that they can be mature AND fun.
I genuinely enjoyed Iron Man and already desire to see it again and why not, it contained no levels of John Travolta, George Clooney, or Jessica Alba. It had no traces of costumes with built-in nipples, no Peter Parker dance sequences or Jennifer Garner as a supposed Asian/Greek martial artist. Iron Man has none of this, just big Iron balls, or Titanium...or some Stark Industries patented alloy of some kind. Anyway, the movie was awesome, go see it.
Iron Man receives five pieces of white-hot shrapnel to the Aorta out of a possible five- WAR...IT'S FANTASTIC!