Monday, May 5, 2008

Iron Man = as bad as I dreamed


In my circles, I'm notorious for not liking superhero movies. Hated X-Men. Hated Spider-Man. Really hated Spider-Man 2, and didn't even bother with Spider-Man 3. Thought Transformers was horrible, and thought Daredevil was physically painful.

So nobody expected me to like Iron Man. I joined a few of the PC Gamer editors for a trip to the Metreon cineplex and I tried to keep an open mind – hey, I'm as big a fan of Robert Downey Jr.'s patter as anybody.

I made an extra preparatory effort: two stiff martinis at Jillian's Bar just before the movie started. I figured that a slight buzz would be just the thing to make Iron Man enjoyable.

Turns out that the martinis weren't enough. I was bored silly by the movie, which felt like a 90-minute opening act. The best thing I can say about it is that Downey was game, in a "What the hell, I may as well try to earn this $5 million check" sort of way. The final showdown with The Mechanized Lebowksi was laughable.

Then I saw today that the movie made over $100 million in its opening weekend, good enough to register as the tenth-biggest opening weekend in history, proving once again that the earth-annihilating asteroid cannot get here soon enough.

Best moment at the screening: When Jeff Bridges revealed his evil stripes, I said aloud "The Dude no longer abides!" and it got a good laugh from several moviegoers within earshot. Good to see that Lebowski humor still goes over well.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Player hater.

rakiel said...

i think it has something to do with not being ten anymore...... sooner or later those movies must become just noise. oh there's a rare one or two out there that surprise - but mostly noise.

they improve again (i'm told) when you're in the company of grandchildren.....or so i'm told

Unknown said...

OK, Rakiel. I shall instead meet you at the next midnight screening of "À Bout de Souffle" (without subtitles, of course). I shall locate you by following the aroma of clove cigarettes and the sound of contemptuous chuckles.

1, 2 vonderful player haters!! ah-ha-hahaha!!

Daniel Morris said...

There will be NO Godard references on my blog, please. Thank you for your cooperation.

Brotherman said...

#1 movie in America!
With a contraversial 2nd place to What happens in Vegas a movie about American values and the sanctity of marraige.