The Shell Game

Love at first sting - Scarlett Johansson strikes a pose and little else in Iron Man 2

Rating:

and a half

Let's get down to brass tax: a lot of movie sequels suck. There are exceptions, but generally ideas start to run dry and more money gets thrown at the screen to compensate. Watching the trailers, that was the impression I had of Iron Man 2. More characters! More special effects! Probably a mind boggling story that results in predictablity! Still, I like the first movie and have always liked 'ol shell head from the comics so I hunkered down for more of the same.

So I have to say with surprise that I liked Iron Man 2. I liked it quite a bit. Returning director Jon Favreau does a good job of continuing the momentum carried from the first flick and staying true to the comic roots. Most of the cast from the original (Robert Downey Jr, Gwenyth Paltrow, and all those supporting folk) return in addition to Scarlett Johanssen and Samuel L Jackson. And a soundtrack heavy with Ac/Dc and The Clash? Pretty good stuff.

Most of what Iron Man 2 does is right. New baddies are added in with a fine Mickey Rourke chewing up scenery as a disgruntled Russian scientist turned evil (he has electric whips tied to him) and I think it was Jeff Fahey as the greedy sleazy corporate arms dude (may be wrong, don't feel like looking up who it really was). Favreau does well in balancing a multitude of characters running around at once. The action is as fast and fun as ever. And a nice sense of humor carries the middle of the flick as Downey Jr pulls us into the silly pathos of a seemingly doomed man (see Iron Man drunkenly dance and perform party tricks!).

In order to keep drama running, Tony Stark battles I guess battery poisoning from his arc powered chest and his anticipated mortality that comes with it. He also is in a dogged fight with congress about the proprietary rights to the Iron Man armor (which allows for entertaining trade offs between Downey Jr and Garry Shandling as a super conservative senator). Don Cheadle is one of my favorite working actors and he does not disappoint taking over the role of Rhody from that guy who won an Oscar playing a rapping pimp. The first two thirds of the film focus more on characters than action, a rarity in the short attention span world of summer movies. Maybe a little too long, I started itching for some action a good 20 minutes before it actually happened.

There are some wrong notes hit here or there, mainly Scarlett Johanssen as a foxy but stilted Black Widow. She looks really hot, so it's too bad she delivers lines with such empty intent that it sucks the life out of her scenes. When she starts talking about how she's a SHIELD agent and has secured the perimeter, it's done with lazy conviction like she's expecting one of the other actors to call "bullshit" on her. And the movie never delves into an obvious subject with Stark publicly revealing he's Iron Man. Why doesn't someone take Stark out with a sniper rifle when he's not dressed in armor? Stark saunters out in one public arena after another stripping off his armor in broad day light. Instead of investing all his damn time and resources into building electric whips with limited range, Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) should have just bought a gun and shot Stark while he was showboating. I mean, Stark doesn't know Whiplash exists or is coming after him and apparently Whiplash can buy off people to get into secure locations with his heavy duty metal coils on his body. So just take a gun with you and shoot Stark while he dances for the crowd. Not too hard, kind of a no brainer. Oh well...

Iron Man 2 is a good film that fits in with the first film nicely. Not as good as the first of course and like many sequels grittiness has been replaced with humor to ensure a wider audience. At the end of the flick I felt very entertained, even if not much happens that's terribly original. Better than average for a superhero movie, Iron Man 2 blows up stuff with aplomb.

Catching Up With...Bitch Stewie!

Bitch Stewie rules! (pictured on the right)

Now for the latest round of catch up -

Bitch Stewie - A week ago I saw a Family Guy repeat that I missed on its original airing, an episode where Stewie made a clone of himself with fewer brain cells to perform menial tasks. The resulting clone, named "Bitch Stewie", saw everything through rose colored glasses speaking in an awestruck tone constantly. Easily the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. Though the recent Family Guy episode with Stewie in drag saying to a mailman "Oh, you're emptying your sack on me!" while the mailman tosses fan mail on him from a bag is almost as good.

Death Of The 80s - So many entertainers from my formative years are dying off that I have to lump them in one place. On top of Boner and T Bone Wolk, in the past week football star / Little House On The Prairie guy Merlin Olsen, child star Corey Haim and Mission: Impossible leader/ Airplane! pilot Peter Graves have all died. Graves was the saddest loss of all to me, I liked Mission: Impossible and loved Airplane. Joey, have you ever seen a grown man naked?

Idolatry - As the ninth season of American Idol falls into an inexplicable limbo of mixed message judging and mind boggling vote results, Entertainment Weekly is there to mock it all with a weekly online critique called Idolatry. Watching Michael Slezak (who seems to be a walking encyclopedia of AI info) and crew ridicule AI has become more fun than watching the show itself. To check out some first class snark, just click on the link.

Ray Lamontagne "Trouble" - One positive thing of American Idol this season is the repeated usage of this song. In fact, it just got a contestant booted from the show this week after singing it. "Trouble" is a song I've heard here and there without knowing who made it, after hearing it twice on AI this year (first from some guy who actually knows trouble via jail time and then this week Alex Lambert) I decided to check out the original. Good tune! Thanks American Idol!!

Techno Sequels - Both Iron Man and Tron have sequels in the pipeline and trailers to entice with. The Iron Man 2 trailer reeks of sequelitis with its overkill (More digital special effects! Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johanssen!! An army of Iron Men!!!) but I know I'm gonna wanna see this puppy anyway. As for Tron: Legacy I'll have to wait and see, it's going to take a lot of inspired storytelling to revive this hard drive once you get past the flashy fx.

W.E.T. "One Love" - While researching long forgotten AOR bands I stumbled across this track from last year. It is high quality AOR in the Journey/Foreigner vein. I've bought the whole album to review, but for now this is the song that's stuck in me head. Dorky homemade video and all.

And that's this round of catch up. Seacrest...out!

Midnight Madness - Ultraman Edition

I'll have to have my wife translate the writing on top. I bet Ultraman never had a problem finding a night light.

While visiting San Francisco's Japantown recently, there were a bunch of plastic dolls of fictional Japanese heroes including one of my childhood champions, Ultraman. Ultraman, the giant guy in the silver rubber body suit and a stoic finned head fighting Godzilla rejects crashing all over Japan. The guy that shoots lasers by crossing his arms. The dude that is summoned by a big pen light held by Hyata of the Science Police. What is a Science Police anyway? And why did they have to wear helmets?

Oops, got side tracked. All of these things seemed mystical as a kid, but a day later while drinking a beer at Chevy's and talking to my wife we came to an interesting conclusion. Ultraman was an early ecological role model. He received his power from the Sun and if he spent too much time on Earth he ran out of power. His chest light would start flashing like a low cell phone battery. So Ultraman had to leave the planet to get some pure sunlight, even if he was in the middle of a fight he had to take off for a little bit to get some Sun.

Ultraman was the original solar panel. He was a walking alternative energy source. His only flaw was low battery life, but it was the 1960s so maybe the fictional technology wasn't there yet. Saving the planet isn't easy. Ultraman brought us one step closer. Not really, but it was fun to say that. Now to the real madness!

Justify My Love - Madonna and Guy Ritchie are divorcing after seven years of marriage. Too bad, they seemed happy for a little while.

Peace and Love is time consuming - Beatles drummer Ringo Starr gave a drop dead date of October 20th for anyone wanting his autograph because he was too busy with "Peace and Love". I imagine being a retired rock star must be incredibly hectic, you have to decide which of multiple estates to stay at, which of however many cars you own you should take to the estate, think about what parties to attend. Yeah, with a life like that who has time for fans?

The Best Things in Life are Free - Radiohead's In Rainbows album, initially offered for any price you want including no price, made the band more money than their last major label release Hail to the Thief. Will other established bands go the same route?

Set Phasers to Stun - Star Trek XI's release date has been delayed to May of 2009. Dammit Jim, you need to get here sooner!

Faith in the Heartland - Journey's recent release Revelation has moved 500,000 copies which normally means a Gold record but because it's a double disc set it counts as Platinum. It's their first post-Perry Platinum disc. Another Wal Mart success story!

Passings - Composer Neal Hefti passed away age 85, he composed the famous Batman theme of the 60's tv series. Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops also passed on age 72, he sang lead on many of that group's classic hits. Both had created music that had an impact on my life.

Sunshine Day - Brady Bunch Actress Maureen McCormick reveals (or confirmed) the stories of sex and drugs from her past are true. I wonder if Chris Knight will include this info on his Trivial Pursuit game show?

Hustle and Flow - Actor Terrance Howard has been removed from Iron Man 2 for financial reasons. A real bummer because he seemed a perfect fit for the Jim Rhodes character. He's been replaced by Don Cheadle, one of my favorite actors because of his versatility. But Cheadle isn't who I think of when it comes to action, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Now It Makes Sense - Before the concept of music videos got old, many of them told stories that were a little abstract compared to the lyrics. Lately, there's someone rerecording these songs to have lyrics match the video. I found out about these videos from other websites including Rolling Stone so it probably means its at viral status. Below are the two videos released so far.

A- Ha "Take On Me" Literal Video Version

Tears for Fears "Head Over Heels" Literal Video Version

Lookin' Good, Shellhead!

"I-am-Iron Man-La La La La La La La Iron Man" is what I remember of the lyrics to Black Sabbath's song

Like many young boys from the pre-internet days, I read comic books to pass the time between baseball games and Battlestar Galactica. Back then, comic book adaptations to tv or movies were a dicey affair. The first two Superman movies, the Wonder Woman and Batman tv shows were all successful adaptations (even if the Batman show redefined the character as campy). But in spite of these successes, dreary stuff like The Amazing Spider Man starring Nicholas Hammond or the Captain America tv movie became the norm. The Batman movie series re-established the darkness of the character and was financially successful until Joel Schumaker drove it back to it's campy style.

Marvel comics had the most difficult time to adapt because the edgier storylines and more complex "super powers" made it tougher to fit into any companies budget. The special effects weren't up to the level needed to make the characters abilities seem real. And plotlines that have to do with self doubt or racism wasn't going to sell any tickets.

Until The Matrix. The Matrix made it possible for comic books, particularly Marvel Comic books, to successfully adapt. That landmark film pulled in a huge audience with a superpowered hero filled with self doubt battling both himself and the universe with innovative special effects. It opened the door and great versions of Spider Man and The X Men hit the silver screen and became successful films in their own right.

But after those successes came an endless stream of crappy movies, some of which were just as profitable financially as Spider Man. Sad versions of The Punisher, Daredevil, Elektra, Hulk and The Fantastic Four popped up and mostly made money. So when I heard that Iron Man was going to be made into a movie, I was expecting the worst.

Which is why the trailer is such a surprise. In the two and a half minutes featured here, you can see the serious tone and special effects really come through. Plus, Robert Downey Jr's bit as Tony Stark shows he has a good fix on the alcoholic billionaire arms contractor the way Michael Keaton did Bruce Wayne in Batman. Best of all, the special effects don't look like the wholesale bargin bin stuff they've been using for most comic adaptations lately.

Iron Man won't come out until 2008, but I'm looking forward to it already. Repulsors at maximum!



Iron Man trailer