Why I love Iron Man
A couple of weeks ago I watched Iron Man. When I was a kid, I was a pretty big iron Man fan. I read my fair share of Iron Man comic books. In fact, as a kid, I read a lot of comic books. Since Iron Man was one of the first comic books I read, I was quite excited to see the character brought to life on the big screen.
The last superhero movie I watched was Batman Begins, which I utterly hate, so my expectations of superhero movies have been lowered somewhat. But I left Iron Man extremely satisfied with what I had seen.
Iron Man is a well written, well directed superhero movie that delivers on all accounts while remaining true to the spirit of the source material. It is a movie that perfectly balances the whimsical reality of a comic book hero with the expectations of an intelligent movie audience; a balance I feel lacking in all other superhero movies. As a comic book geek, I am happy to proclaim Iron Man as the perfect comic book movie.
Iron Man was originally an anti-communist superhero in the 1970s. Back then, tin head was a one-dimensional poster boy in the fight against communism. His arch nemesis was the Mandarin ( I kid you not, that was his actual name), a racist stereotype of Chinese communist.
How times have changed. In Iron Man, the titular hero gets trust forward into the 21st century. In the gritty opening, Stark’s convoy is attacked as he is being escorted from a weapons demonstration in Afghanistan. I enjoyed the grit and realism of the attack, Stark’s un-heroic reaction and irony of Stark being attacked by his own weapons.
This Iron Man lives in the real world. A polarised America still at war, with Stark having no qualms about war profiteering. This time, Iron Man is fighting the communist threat of the 21st century; terrorism.
Without giving the plot away, I will mention that Iron Man does a good job of providing character development, a believable plot and exciting action sequences. The antagonist is believable and unlike other superhero movies, there is sufficient build up as the hero and villain meet for the final showdown. Most premiering live-action superhero movies usually find themselves trading action for character development , which I find to be pretty boring. Fortunately, Iron Man manages to prove that a superhero movie can find the right balance between action, plot and character development.
Robert Downey Jr was born to play Anthony Stark. He is cocky, intelligent, flirtatious and more importantly, an egomaniacal asshole. A perfect representation of what the ‘real’ Tony Stak is (SPOILER ALERT: The comic book Anthony Stark, caused the death of his best friend Harold Hogan, Captain America, and Spiderman’s Aunt May. He also got Spiderman to reveal his identity to the world, while spying on him and his family before betraying him. So yeah, he is an asshole. Read Marvel Civil War for more. END SPOILER ALERT.)
Unfortunately, there isn’t much chemistry between Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. There were several moments of tension between the characters, but when they get a chance to connect, they somehow seem unable to get sparks flying.
If you haven’t seen Iron Man, I highly recommend you do so.
Why I hate Batman Begins
I hate Batman Begins. I find the movie to be the perfect example of how you can seemingly have the right ingredients, but fail miserably due to an incompetent chef.
I found Batman Begins to be a total betrayal of the Batman character, and I largely blame the script for that. They waited several years after Batman & Robin to find the right script, and quite frankly, I think they should have waited several years more.
The script to Batman Begins clearly implies that Batman was easily and foolishly manipulated by Ra’s al Ghul. If you have not seen the movie, I recommend you skip the next part.
Spoiler Alert!
In Batman Begins, Ra’s al Ghul reveals that he tried using a new tool in destroying Gotham; poverty. This ensuing poverty eventually resulted in Thomas and Martha Wayne being robbed and killed, hence Ra’s being inadvertently responsible for Thomas and Martha’s death.
The movie begins with Bruce fighting crime from the inside-out. He is content with joining the criminal underworld so that he can infiltrate them and destroy them. He is even content with staying in a Chinese jail fighting criminals. That is until Ra’s al Ghul bails him out and shows him another way, thus changing his mode of operation.
Ra’s tells Bruce, that as a man he can die. To fight crime he needs to be a symbol. Bruce later repeats the same idea later in the movie, clearly inspired by his evil master. Gee, I wonder what symbol he decided to choose.
Bruce was clearly well instructed in several different martial arts, but as implied by his training and early ass whopping from Lian Nesson, the style which would be most effective, would be the one taught to him by Ra’s. The same applies to the Batman’s weaponry. He models his gloves after the ninjas’ and the batarangs after the throwing stars.
The implication is clear. The Batman is a villain’s protégé gone rogue. There are just too many insinuations present in the plot to try and argue otherwise. This is simply one the worst interpretations of a comic book character ever.
End Spoiler Alert
Even Batman & Robin was more accurate in depicting Batman. It was accurate in depicting the campy, 1970s Batman, albeit 30 years too late, but accurate nonetheless. Batman Begins is simply is poor representation of the source material.
Fortunately, the same screenwriters did not adapt Lord of the Rings. Otherwise, Frodo would be a 6’5 Norwegian, blonde, Fabio-type supermodel with a bad accent and a catch phrase.
But besides the terrible script, I found Christopher Nolan to be too inexperienced in directing fighting sequences. Shots are too tight and they cut away too quickly, which provides only a fleeting glimpse of the action. Despite having watched the movie several times, the poor direction during fight sequences often left me wondering what was supposed to be going on.
There is also no chemistry between Christian Bale and Katie Holmes. Ken Watanabe and Lian Nesson also pull off one of the most insulting bait-and-switch routines I have ever seen.
Despite the strong cast, Batman Begins features a poor script with almost non-existent tension between the protagonist and the antagonist, no romantic chemistry and poorly directed action sequences.
I’ve seen Batman fight cults, Aliens, Predators and even Dracula. But sadly, Batman has yet to triumph over lousy script writers. It pains me to say that Batman Begins is one the worst superhero movies I’ve seen, which is a shame because I really like Morgan Freeman.
