Movie Review: Iron Man

Rating: 3-1/2 cigars (Great CGI/interesting casting/unimaginative script)

Finally got to see Iron Man last night and despite being sandwiched in-between a Beavis-and-Butthead high schooler on my right and a pregnant woman about to give birth on my left (oops, sorry honey), it was pretty good. The first pleasant surprise patriotic film-goers will notice is the villains: they are actual Muslims. Yes, that's right. Rag-heads. Camel-huggers. Sand-monkeys. The same barbarous murderers that we are at war with in real life. Go figure. How did this faux pas make it past the Hollywood PC filters? It didn't. Marvel Studios financed this superhero drama themselves. I suspect this is because some Hollywood suit wouldn't allow The Thing to smoke cigars when Fantastic Four was produced. That would piss me off and that is why another pleasant surprise awaits you; manly men who drink scotch, smoke cigars and chase women. AAARRR!

I liked the casting. MOBsters will instantly recognize Tom "Swiftie" Swift as the rebellious and irreverent Tony Stark, Mitch "Iron Monger" Berg as the lumbering evil Obidiah Stane and Guy "GuyDog" Collins as the soft-spoken agent from S.H.I.E.L.D. I liked the CGI, too. Much better than the cartoonish Spiderman films. But other than that, I found that Iron Man just didn't "pop". Not like Blade Runner watered your eyes with its set design. Or Matrix could keep rolling down your socks after seeing it for the umpteenth time. For example, the writing on Iron Man just wasn't suspenseful. It wasn't as antiseptic as say, a 24, but not even the climax will put you at the edge of your seat so don't expect anything revolutionary or even evolutionary here (heart-plugs? Come on. That's so Dune). Equally underwhelming was the music. I have been humming the Black Sabbath riff since I saw the first preview. How awesome would it have been to have torqued up that heavy-metal fugue as Tony Stark walked out of the terrorist cave in his earth-shaking pig-iron prototype. VERY awesome. How equally disappointing it was then when it wasn't played at all (20 seconds during the closing credits don't count).

All in all, Iron Man really had the potential of forging some new cinemagraphic ground but in the end, the new studio startup combined with a light-weight actor-turned-director proved to be too much to overcome. But keep your eyes out. With Marvel Studio's upcoming slate, things can only go up from here.

Next up: The Dark Knight, Hancock, Hellboy II, Star Trek: Zero (w/ Simon Pegg as Scotty)