Iron Man, Tin Man, Prince Caspian, and Speed Racer.
Posted May 19th, 2008 by Howard TaylerSaw some films in the last few weeks. My thoughts in short:
1) Iron Man was wonderful. Robert Downey, Jr’s interactions with the assembly-bots were inspired. I’ve only seen it once, but I’d see it again if I had time.
2) Sci-Fi Channel’s Tin Man was a visually enticing re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz. Unfortunately, the end is kind of unsatisfying. Our heroine spends the entire miniseries (6 hours?) following a path someone else laid out for her. Neat plot twist in Part II, fun villains, cool heroes… and an ending with about as much punch as warm, flat Diet Sprite.
3) Prince Caspian was also visually very enticing. I haven’t read the book in years (decades?) so the inevitable compression of events and abridged storytelling didn’t grate on me. My biggest gripe (and it’s a gripe that applies to a lot of the Narnia books) is the quite literal deus ex machina Lewis employs. Fortunately the stories are redeemed (hah! See what I did there?) by the fact that the heroes don’t just wait around for Aslan. They strive, struggle, and yes, some of them die (just not the ones with names.)
4) Speed Racer… okay, it’s tanking hard at the box-office, and if you’ve seen the trailers you’re probably thinking “stupid movie.” This, fair reader, is my runaway favorite of the bunch. I’ve seen it twice. I laughed. I cheered. I cried. It was corny enough and cheesy enough to open its own Tex-Mex chain, but it worked. I think the Wachowskis may have extended cinematic syntax a bit (or at least pushed the envelope) and I KNOW I’ll be picking this one up on DVD for the kids. And then watching it with them. No, this isn’t nostalgia speaking. I couldn’t remember much of the original series, and what I could I didn’t really like.
I have a list of summer movies I plan to see. I’ll let you know what I think of ‘em, though I’m sure there will be plenty of other folks yammering about ‘em too.
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May 19th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Speed Racer is a very nice movie. (I envision potheads tripping to the pretty colors like they used to do with “The Wall”.)
There’s even references to “Star Wars” and that James Bond film where Roger Moore pretends to be Japanese.
I caught a 7:00 PM showing at the Reel in Ontario, Oregon. They made no profit off me because I had the theater to myself- possibly the entire 8 screen multiplex, and I bought none of their overpriced food.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
I caught the very first showing in Casa Grande, AZ. 9:50am on the Friday it opened. There were six of us there, and three of them came with me.
May 20th, 2008 at 12:32 am
Iron Man was amazing!
One Australian review put it very well: “Iron man is actually a fusion of two fantastic movies. The first one is about a superhero. The other is about Robert Downey Jr being awesome.”
I have not yet seen Prince Caspian, but it looks pretty cool. As far as the Deus Ex Machina goes, lay off Lewis, he thought he was writing cute fairy tales for his niece, not an epic that’d be remembered for years to come! :)
May 20th, 2008 at 12:41 am
bizzybody: “[…]that James Bond film where Roger Moore pretends to
be Japanese.”
_You Only Live Twice_ — and it was Sean Connery.
The first promo I saw for _Speed Racer_ said to me: “Strap yourself
in — because this is going to SUCK!”. I suppose its failure at the box
office was inevitable; Hollywood hasn’t made a successful movie
featuring auto racing in living memory (if that). Myself, I’m waiting
for cable.
_Iron Man_ was OK, even with the cliches. And the Monk’s Reward.
May 20th, 2008 at 2:59 am
Off topic, but g’day Howard, I’ve been following “schlock mercenary” for a little while and enjoying it, I hope you won’t mind me joining your blog comments.
“gunner”
May 20th, 2008 at 3:21 am
I really enjoyed Iron Man, only 9 people in the cinema stayed through the credits to watch the Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. clip at the end (and ok 8 of those where the group i went in with).
The best thing about the film for me was that the irritating teenagers in front of me believed my “shut up and keep still or i’ll have you thrown out” speech and amazingly did as they were told (mostly). Unsettled kids can ruin a film and the multiplex doesn’t monitor the screens, they just wait for complaints.
May 20th, 2008 at 4:06 am
Just a couple of thoughts for alternatives to see.
In Bruges, Martin McDonagh writes and directs, Colin Farell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes act their little hearts out. The humour is exceedingly black though not bleak. Has some of the most politically incorrect lines ever written, it touches on love, honour and the nature of enjoyment. Do not take the kids, this is an adult movie for adults.
So what will the poor kiddiewinkles do?
Simple take them to Son of Rambow. Two kids in the eighties decide to shoot a sequel to Rambo. Its also very funny, has a lot to say on the nature of family and friendship and an inspired eighties soundtrack. A quick poll of the office reveals that everyone who’se seen it has loved it.
As for Iron Man, well it passed the time but did seem to be three movies shoe horned into one which never quite decided what it wanted to do. Plus the wife spent the entire film drooling over Mr Downey Jr. Guess who has to dress up as Iron Man at the next fancy dress party? Yes okay it will be me in a T-Shirt with a jam jar lid stuck on it.
Given that I’d better hie me to a gymnasium.
TTFN
Sebastian
May 20th, 2008 at 8:42 am
I saw Iron Man. Thoroughly enjoyed it. The audience I was with was very disciplined. Out of the 40 or so people in the theatre, only a couple groups left before the ending credits finished. Although we helped in that. We saw some people trying to leave early, and we yelled at them to sit down til the end, or they will be sorry.
As I type, Speed Racer is only getting a 34% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while Iron Man has a 93% approval. I will try your technique. I’ll give myself a temporary lobotomy, and see if the movie works for me.
May 20th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Well, since the Deus Ex Machina in Narnia is introduced as a main character, it would be kind of dumb not to use him. I think the whole point was to use a god (as opposed to a God, since even Aslan is subordinate to another) as a main character, but point out that he only shows up when the characters have exhausted their own abilities. I don’t know which book it’s first mentioned in, but Aslan isn’t a TAME lion.
If they wanted to do an animated cartoon to big-screen racing movie, they should have done Tom SLick, not Speed Racer. The Thunderbolt Grease Slapper was a terrific piece of machinery (using the original maning of terrific “Inspiring Terror”).
I can’t wait to see Iron Man; my daughter still owes me for my birthday “dinner and a movie” date. Of course, she’s working on her Master’s degree and two jobs, so the mere fact that she has time to breathe is amazing. I’ve always loved the Powered Exoskeleton superhero, even before I read Starship Troopers, because it’s just an engineering problem. Weird radiation, ancient magical devices, etc, are fantasy, but powered armor is factual. Not practical, but at least possible.
May 20th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
And I agree that the ending of Tin Man was pretty disappointing, since we saw where it was heading, and I expected something far more spectacular to follow afterwards.
May 20th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Tin Man’s plot, in my opinion, works much better if you assume that most of the people who’ve been running the O.Z. for its last few decades are massively incompetent. It’s a bubble kingdom with a small population and no external enemies, so there was no real need for their army to actually have skills at fighting people or capturing fugitives. Likewise, the Queen appeared to be a wonderful homemaker who just had the misfortune to inherit the throne, and spent most of her time raising her kids in their country retreat, leaving her trusted advisers to run the country, which might have worked better had her right-hand-man not been a genius inventor whose first answer to any problem is, “Can I fix this with some sort of overpowered and expensive machine?” (This is the only way the Sun Seeder makes any sense to me - the farmers are having some crop trouble, so the government’s answer is to meddle with the basic rhythm of the seasons?)
I think Azkedellia’s been working her evil fingers to the bone trying to whip some competence into these people, but even she can only do so much.
Prince Caspian - One of the things that bothers me about the Narnia series is how Lewis doesn’t seem to have liked the idea of the Pevensie children growing up. At the end of the first book, they’ve supposedly lived in Narnia for many years, turned into mature adults, even received marriage proposals, and then they get unceremoniously dumped back into their old lives and bodies, where they have to obey adults and not talk back when they’re treated like children. And despite all the dramatic potential of that situation, Lewis ignores it completely, acting like they’re still normal English children at the start of the second book. (Susan, of course, eventually gets banished from Narnia completely on account of her interest in becoming a woman and having romantic relationships with men)
So I liked that the movie added some scenes in the beginning showing that they did, in fact, have trouble adjusting.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
You know Howard I have to agree with your film assessment in general. I loved speed racer, not because it was cinema, but because they really just went for it. They embraced what the film was about and just went for it. Best of all the actors actually did a little somethign called acting. THey were not so and so portraying so and so… they simply were Speed, Trixie, and Racer X. It was definantly a film that had they pulled back even a little, would have been complete suck, but since they didn’t, it was a really well made movie. Whatever the critics say. Also as an added Bonus to being well done and amusing, it was quite clean, if not quite squeeky clean, which might just be more of the reason its been panned than anything else.
Prince Caspian was visually pleasing, but I found it rather lacked reasonable character development… it was just choppy. I think it’s because they couldn’t decide what movie to make, a Lord of the Rings scale epic or a kid friendly (ie short) movie. So we ended up with Lord of the Rings light, and while it was by no means a bad movie it didn’t live up to its potential in my mind.
Iron man… I don’t think it deserves the hype its getting. It was good, definantly in the top 5 comic book movies of all time. Not the best. BUt definantly in the top five. THey stayed true to the basic idea that Tony Stark is essentially an egotistical #$%^ that as a super hero pretty much just cleans up his own corporate messes though.
Also, love the comic. I’m a long time reader even if its my first time posting.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
I’ve been waiting for Iron Man to be Done Right since about 1970 or so; kvetched quietly to myself at all of the ripoffs that wasted good bits that the Marvel writers did first and better (Exoman, M.A.N.T.I.S., even the powerloader scene in ALIENS) and when it was over, I was *so* relieved at all the disasters successfully avoided.
And there’s STILL no indication of what StarkIronWorks.com was set up for.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Speed Racer had me and my friends cheering throughout the movie, as well as my eight-year old daughter. We loved it. To me, it took the spirit of the cartoon and kept that intact in the movie. Something were different, but it worked, as many have said.
Looooooved it!
Iron Man ROCKED! For me it is the equal of Spiderman 2, Superman, and Batman Begins. (On a tangent, I am really looking forward to The Dark Knight.)
I also liked Narnia: PC. I never have read the books, so I only judge by what I see, and I like what I saw. And so suit me, I liked it.
Next up: Indy, Hulk, Dark Knight, X-Files, Hellboy, Star Wars, and Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants II…okay, the last one is not really my choice, the wife has to have a say every once in a while… :-D
May 21st, 2008 at 6:37 am
I really enjoyed Speed Racer too. It’s impressive at the ability to put its material into a compelling format. Hypnotic. I haven’t seen Iron Man or Narnia 2 yet. Tin Man was ‘not bad’ - kind of enjoyable, but nothing much. I like the above reading of it about the Queen being a good mom but not much of a ruler ;)
May 21st, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Kumquat; the thing about Zipperhead was that he was the Quintessential (there’s a pun if you can find it) engineer. As Scott Adams pointed out, an engineer is incapable of looking at something like a laser pointer without wondering if a stun setting could be added. He also said “To an engineeer, if it isn’t broken, it doesn’t have enough features.”
And Yes; the O.Z. was a Utopia; the one problem every Utopia has is barbarians. Until the Evil Sorceress was released, there wasn’t anybody barbarous enough to threaten the O.Z. “Use it or lose it” applies violent capabilities, too.
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:10 am
I loved Iron Man and Speed Racer.
Have yet to see Prince Caspian and missed Tin Man.
As far as Speed goes, I thought they did a great job of it and stuck to much of the spirit of the original show. I am going to take my 7 yr old daughter next time I get paid and am definitely buying the DVD. Same goes for Iron Man.
Going to see Indiana Jones tonight.
Also looking forward to Dark Knight.
On a final note, I feel I have failed my daughter as I have never shown her any of the Indiana Jones movies. I have trained her well and she can quote Star Wars and Monty Pyton, yet have never shown her Raiders. That is being remedied this weekend as we will watch all 3 at home then head to the theater.
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:58 am
richv - Exactly! A genius engineer can be tremendously useful, but you don’t want him running the place. A guy like that needs a boss who knows when to let him do his thing, when to restrain him, and when to keep him off a problem altogether. And the Queen was not up to that job.
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Finally saw Speed Racer last night–at an actual drive in theater! (The weather was perfect.)
I enjoyed the movie, laughed at a lot of scenes. One of the things that impressed me was that the “kid scenes” did not annoy me, unlike the typical Disney for-kids live action movie. Casting was very good, something I’ve felt since the cast was first announced.
Not a perfect movie though. It gets mehs:
Meh 1: Mach 5 didn’t get nearly enough screen time, was relegated to daily driver status except one race where it subbed for Mach 6, and its abilities were not unique–everyone had jump jacks or something similar.
Meh 2: Mach 6. I started watching racing in the late ’60s, but lost interest in Indy and Formula 1 when the cars got too exotic. Same feeling about the 6.
Meh 3: Really hard to follow the action in a lot of the race scenes. I’ll bet this was done deliberately to reduce the need for detail in the CGI, but still…
Meh 4: Backstory. There has been one racing league in the world since the early 20th century, controlled by big business, and it has been as fake as pro wrestling for most of its existence. Corporations are evil. Corporations are Evil. CORPORATIONS ARE EVIL! Give it a rest already, willya?
P.S. Howard–yes, the film was long. But what would you have left out? I thought everything fit together well, without much excess. Heck, they cut out the entire race where Speed got slammed…
Okay, I could have done without the ninja scene. :D
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Indy sucked!
I can sum it up with one lousy word…
aliens.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:28 pm
I thought Iron Man was great, was planning on blowing off Sped Racer (spelling intentional) but may take a looksee now…
May 26th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I sort of enjoyed Indy, I always view them as semi Cthulhu mythos based stories and it worked as that…. right up until the last 5 minutes.
I personally would have just changed the escape route of the (non indiana group) in the final part.
wording deliberate obscure to avoid too many spoilers