IRON MAN

Rated PG-13

Written by Jack P. King

Edited by Ma’at

I give this film a Tropical Dot rating

If this film is any indication of the blockbuster season to come we are in for one of the best summer movie experiences in the last five years. It is not unheard of for a movie to open the first weekend of May, starting the blockbuster season, and then be eclipsed by the films that are released the next week. Iron Man has real staying power. It shot the opening weekend numbers up to over one hundred million dollars, as most well timed releases can during the summer. However the numbers are not the type of indicator I look for when state it has staying power. Iron Man seemed to be on everyone’s mind and the topic of many conversations over the weekend. It seemed no matter where I went shopping people were either going to or coming from the theater and seeing Iron Man and for good reason.

Firstly, Iron Man is one of my favorite comic book heroes in fact my first comic book was an issue of The Invincible Iron Man, combine this with my adolescent love of armor clad knights of the middle ages and you have a recipe for an Iron Man fan for life. This modern retelling of the original story has been updated and well told, hitting all major points that any fan, of the metal hero, would be hard pressed to identify any faults with the film. I typically am hard on comic films and for one of the few times I have little to say about the film that would put it in a negative light.

The casting was one of the most surprising and excellent pieces of this film. It was long thought that Robert Downy Jr. was a poor choice for the armored hero and business man, Tony Stark. However, anyone who knows more than surface information about the old shellhead would have known that Robert is the best and maybe only person to play this character. Not to mention the amazing job done by Gwyneth Paltrow as Tony’s assistant Pepper Pots. The interaction between these two characters on screen surprised me. The high quality of acting between these two in their scenes made for a strong foundation in this action blockbuster. The addition of Terrance Howard (as Jim Rhodes) and Jeff Bridges (as Obadiah Stane) made for great acting all the major characters of the film.

Visually it could not have been easy to portray a hero that has repulser beams, flies, and does hand to hand combat with giant robots. Yet the makers of Iron Man do a superb job with some very respectable CG, even my friend Dave would have little to complain about. The only real problems I had were the lack of experience by director Jon Favreau, who also plays Tony’s driver, with action films and the lose of the movies villain. Jon Favreau has come along way from his earliest roles in Rudy (as D-Bob) and PCU (as Gutter) to have not only a role in the comic book film Daredevil, but also Directing one of his own (Iron Man). His directing and acting credits have little in the way of action film experience. He did do an amazing job with Iron Man and it was good watch. I feel that more experience could have made a few scenes better, but the action packed Iron Man did benefit from the none action style that might not have come with a big action film director. Lastly, I felt that the introducing of the specific villain for Iron Man in this film could have been put off until they make a sequel, but this comes from my background knowledge of Iron Man. I feel the potential of keeping this villain around might have made for a great sequel story.

Great movie, great way to start the blockbuster season, great cast and acting. Overall a worth while theater watch and I will more than likely buy it for my library.

May the Fourth be with you!

As one of the odd days of the year that I consider to be a holiday May fourth is considered Star Wars day. The unofficial holiday is a play on the phrase “May the force be with you”. There are no places that I have read about that treat this day with any more or less reverence toward the star wars saga than any typical day of the year.

I wanted to take the time on this Star Wars Day to point out an upcoming event. Soon the saga will be expanded again and this time it is entering completely CG (computer generated) realm. Star Wars Clone Wars which chronicles the adventures of Anakin Skywalker and the Republic during the time period between Episodes two and three know by the same name. The Star Wars saga has already made a brief venture in this direction, giving us a standard animation micro series a few years back also called Star Wars Clone Wars (on DVD). This new CG series scheduled for release sometime this year looks good. I would encourage all to visit Star Wars official website and watch the trailer. The detail in the trailer looks amazing and as much as I like the animated series the CG series will add to the Saga in spectacular ways.

The Forbidden Kingdom

Rated PG-13

I give this film a Wildberry Dot

Written by Jack P. King

Edited by Ma’at

I really hope that “this writing thing” is like riding a bike because lets face it, I have not written any movie review for almost a year. I guess after you hit the 100 movie review mark and get a new, all consuming, job one can lose interest, but I am back. So, here goes …

My interest in this The Forbidden Kingdom started months ago when I first passed over the trailer on one of the websites I check regularly. The title and the movie poster did not seem too exiting so I did not take the time to watch it. After several slow weeks with no new trailers to watch I saw it again and finally decided to take a look. To my utter shock and spontaneous joy the names of both Jackie Chan and Jet Li came on to my screen, it was in this moment that I said, I need to see this film.

The film itself is a family fantasy martial arts film, with comedy, good overcoming evil and even a tiny love story. With all these differing aspects I am surprised at how much I enjoyed the film. The film was so full of different elements that it never seemed to settle into a groove and just kept going from piece to piece. This was to be expected, it is a common thing to have family / kid friendly films to be so full of things that the kids get smashed in the brain with topic after topic to keep there limited attention on the screen.

I feel that the massively simple and full story was presented very well. The martial arts were acceptable and the work of both Jackie and Jet was great. One might say their work was excellent when you take into account that their ages put together are close to 100. It was nice to see the two biggest crossover martial arts stars work together in this film. However I thought that the story could have been better if the direction was of a higher caliber. The director has very few credits to his name and they are all family films, and none are of the martial arts genre. I think that this film could have still been family friendly and had a slightly better edge to it, this lacking element is why the film gets a Wildberry dot instead of the Tropical Dot I was hoping to give it. The film was an enjoyable watch and a solid opener to what will soon be the 2008 summer movie season. The story left a small widow for a sequel and I would love to see more Chan and Li movies no matter how family friendly they may be.

After the film was over I sat next to Dave and commented that the film reminds me of “The Never Ending Story” that had similar elements and crammed with stuff to keep the kids interested in watching. As I drove home I kept thinking about other movie that might fit in with this type of film, only one other came to mind and that was the “Wizard of OZ”. It was only later that I found that I was not the only one to make the comparison of this film with “The Never Ending Story” The Pop Culture Critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, Peter Hartaub makes the same comparison in his writing on the film.

Justice League: The New Frontier

Rated PG-13

Written by Jack P. King

Edited by Ma’at

 

• I just finished watching Justice League: The New Frontier
• The new Frontier wasn’t that the tile of a star trek movie?
• Close, but not exactly.
• Really I could have sworn it was.
• Nope, just your odd thinking and the mixing comic books with other things Sci-Fi.
• My bad, sorry to all the Trekies out there. So, uh … what did you think of the film.
• Personally I think the film was a waste of time and animation. Even a comic book fan like me was disinterested with the movie.
• Why?
• It was set in the post war fifties, I know that the DC universe has a long history, but I do not need to see the characters from way back before I was born. Don’t get me wrong I had a small amount of interest in the origins and the interactions of the heroes with the themes during the time in history. However, the nostalgia factor was decades removed from me as a viewer, a poor choice by whoever decided to make the movie. There is a reason comic based animation films go strait to video these days … I long for the days of Batman the animated series from the 90’s. That was a great show and had animated films in the theater because they were so popular.
• Amen
• I mean comic books have enjoyed a renewed status during the past decade thanks to live action films like Batman, X-men and Spider-man, but the coat tail riding is getting old.
• Preach on
• I am sick and tired of wading through crappy film after crappy film to find any good quality comic films that I enjoy. It was no surprise that this film sucked I only pray that this summers live action comic based films bring me something worth watching even for two hours.
• Hallelujah

WAR

Written by Jack P. King

Edited by Ma’at

 

War staring Jason Stathem and Jet Li was an action based film, surrounding differing Asian gangs, FBI agents and a kick ass hit man. Nothing in this story was very original and it was only average for the movie experiences one can find today. I have no doubt that this film had a good run in the box office in early September last year, but there is good reason why you heard nothing about it on the academy awards or perhaps you still can’t picture the film in your mind … well do not worry about it, it sucked. Other than one predictable plot twist, the movie had little to no redeeming quality. I really think that both Jason Stathem and Jet Li need to have an amazing film within the next few years or they will be permanently filed in with “B” list action stars, while they may be fun to watch they will never bring in the audiences on there own. This fact is nothing new for Jason Stathem, but would be a sad thing for Jet Li so it is my hope that his new film Forbidden Kingdom has a touch of greatness.

New home

So, as it has come to pass my previous home on the Internet is no longer a welcoming place for me and my writings. I wish I had some great story about how my controversial content got me kick off the webhost I was using, but the real story is my less interesting. Hopefully I will be able to get back into the routine of posting about films and other items. Please wait for the future with much anticipation.