Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow(Kerry Conran, 2004) Conran's film envisioned a new world—not the homagey 1930's era steampunk film that he created, but in how films were made, given the computer revolution that was exploding every aspect of business and personal life. Could the movies be far behind? George Lucas was perfecting the green-screen process with his Star Wars pre-sequels, so that everything looked exquisite, but it tended to ham-string the actors, who could only emote to hanging ping-pong balls and walk around imaginary architecture and furnishings, making them have to concentrate on other things besides making their memorized lines sound natural or convey something besides exposition. In the mean-time, film-makers saw the potential of shorter shooting times and building expansive/expensive sets—just do it in the box around the actors. Robert Rodriguez jumped in and James Cameron took it to whole new levels, merely motion-capturing the actors for his Avatar. And making a billion bucks.
For four years, Conran worked on a MacIIci to make a short promo film (see below) of a 1930's New York where zeppelins dock at the Empire State Building and giant mechanical robots (inspired by a classic Fleischer Studios Superman cartoon seen further below) march through the streets crushing cars and resisting the efforts of machine-gun-wielding police—to shoot them down so they could fall and crush even more things, like the overlayed people looking up with a sense of horror/wonder. It ends with a call to the title character (relayed by an RKO studio-like antenna) and the short ends with the promise of another chapter, like an old-time movie serial.
The strength of the short is it's obvious love for art-deco stylization and Warner Brothers montages and German expressionism—and monster-robots (that one's key). It was enough to excite producer Jon Avnet to take the techniques and design sensibilities and turn it into a feature. For two years, Avnet and Conran expanded the story, with—literally—the sky being the limit. But, the issue was giant robots attacking New York and a guy in a P40 Warhawk to the rescue.
Seems a little limited for a feature.
And it is. Even with an explanation of who and why giant robots, and for the introduction of so many reinforcements needed to take out so many robots, there's not much story. The solution is what Sky Captain provides—more opportunity to add more ships, precious few characters and a lot of flying around dodging the more-than-enough hardware thrown at them—but not a lot of depth. As in this clip...
The details are that Jude Law's devil-may-care Sky Captain—his name is Harry "Joe" Sullivan and leader of "The Flying Legion"—manages to disable one of the robots for examination by his tech-guy Dex (Giovanni Ribisi) and, with the help of plucky reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow), learns that the mastermind behind the attacks is one Dr. Totenkopf, who has been assassinating top technologists around the globe (by means of a "Mysterious Woman"—that is her name and played by Bai Ling) to hide his intentions. The scientists don't have that much differing them, just slightly more than individual robots do, making it difficult to care about their fates, much less tell them apart.
It is up to Sky Captain to recruit former flame Commander Francesca "Franky" Cook (Angelina Jolie, leathered up down to an eye-patch) of the Royal Navy, to lead a team of "Thunderbirds"-style air-squadrons to stop the ultimate plan of the Dr. Totenkopf at his headquarters on a mysterious island, which involves destroying the human race and starting it anew on a rocket designed as a modern-age Noah's Ark.
But, there's a difference between being "inspired" and being "inspired-by." In the film's desturated, vaseline-smeared world, Paltrow's Polly Perkins works as a reporter for Charles Foster Kane's Chroniclechain, there's a visit to James Hilton's (and Frank Capra's—and Stephen Gooson's) Shangri-La, and during a pitched battle in the skies over New York, King Kong can be seen climbing the Empire State Building (presumably because every plane in the city is otherwise engaged). Ed Shearmur's score is busy "Mickey-Mousing" with John Williams' orchestration-templates, but there's no time to establish anything but the briefest of musical themes.
When Polly meets one of those vulnerable scientist-types, she does so in a nearly empty theater showingThe Wizard of Oz, and control rooms have a similar spark (but a bit more scope) than Flash Gordon serials and Things to Come. Even when Dr. Totenkopf is revealed, it turns out to be an Oz-generated Laurence Olivier using archival footage. There are pop-culture references tucked in corners and hidden in plain sight—you know Sky Captain is sweet on Polly when you look at his plane's serial number, "h11od" (read it upside-down...or head over heels).
During the big reveal it turns out that Dr. Totenkopf is long-dead and his research to create a "perfect world"—"The World of Tomorrow"—has been taken over by his robots, who have been covering tracks, and gathering an example of male and female of every species of creature to be housed upon a giant rocket, the second stage of which will ignite the atmosphere of Earth to wipe out all life currently existing on Earth, sterilizing it for his re-boot.
Uh, yeah...hold on there.
With an atmosphere on fire, that'll pretty much make the planet uninhabitable to the saved species, as well as a long-in-the-works "Adam and Eve" project (Don't worry, it's not Sky Cap and Polly). So, unless Dr. T's robot-minions have a Death Star orbiting (and they don't), their so-called "World of Tomorrow" is going to be extra-crispy rather than regular. The robotic plot to re-populate the planet is a bit short-sighted and then, which, only means that the movie's plot is clunky and blowing off steam.
And that's the problem with Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Oh, it's fun alright, with enough details to satisfy any geek/film-freak willing to watch it over and over again (and maybe capture those images and post them on their movie blog). But, if that same frothy energy that went into those quick call-backs and little details had gone into big things like story and plot, then this might have been a better movie, instead of the cheese-fest that it is.
The devil, here, is in the details. Sure, all the trees are nice. Where's the forest?
Conran's short, made on a Macintosh IIci. Amazing.
I had planned to put up a review of Soderbergh's The Laundromat today, but this seems a more appropriate choice from his work. Written at the time of the film's outbreak.
"Night of the Coughing Superstars" or "Please Wash Your Hands Before Exiting the Theater"
It's not nice to fool Mother Nature. Or even to crowd The Bitch. Because, sooner or later, she's going to look at all that nice smooth asphalt we've laid across her, and send up some crab-grass to seek out the weak spots and crack it.
It also cross-germinates into the "Butterfly Effect" genre (see Babel, 21 Grams, Crash)—you know, where we're all so interconnected that if a butterfly sneezes in China, we'd better cover our mouths in the United States or else we'll keel over into the Stone Age.***And with so many stars (all very good, actually), it also reminds of one of those Irwin Allen SAG-slaughter disaster movies of the 1970's, that featured tag-lines like: "Who Will Survive?"
Contagion comes a few years after the majority of us could dismiss SARS and H1N1 in the real world with a blithe "where's the pandemic?" (completely dismissing such very real threats as AIDS and the hair-trigger Ebola and Marburg viruses).****But, it is chilling that with all our research capabilities, we'd still be running behind any new threat, simply because the little suckers can evolve faster in the gut than we can be creationists in the lab. And Scott Z. Burns (who wrote Soderbergh's The Informant! and is updating "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." for him*****) has taken an...er...clinical approach with his screenplay, starting moments after "first contact," following the progress of the disease from China, to the United states, its spread and detection by the Center for Disease Controland their efforts to isolate the cause, and, possibly, find a cure. However fast they go (and it's a process hampered by testing schedules and production runs...and which pharmaceutical companies will profit from it), it's not enough to prevent wide-spread death and a near-collapse of societal structures throughout the world.
"It's figuring us out faster than we're figuring it out," says one of the techs (Jennifer Ehle) to her boss at CDC (Laurence Fishburne)...and it doesn't have a bureaucracy to work through. The drama is situational, so don't go in expecting ambulance chases and LED countdowns to disaster, but, instead, situations where families are ripped apart, investigators become victims, and desperation becomes just another symptom. It's a procedural with a widely-flung spray pattern.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'
** We could also mention The War of the Worlds, but there, the bugs are the good guys.
*** A better example would be: "If Greece doesn't raise its debt-ceiling, should I rollover my 401k into doubloons?"
**** And yesterday, I heard people are dying from Listeria-infected cantaloupes! ***** At the time this was written, Soderbergh was attached to direct the project which was in development since 2005. Guy Ritchie eventually directed a screenplay written by himself and Lionel Wigram.
With Great Power Comes Greeeeeat Flakiness
or "You Say that a Lot. What Are You Sorry For THIS Time? ("...Previously on 'Peter Screws the Pooch'")
At one point inSpider-Man: Homecoming, Peter—Spider-Man—Parker (Tom Holland) says to Tony—Iron Man—Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) "I wanted to be just like you!" and Stark counters "...and I wanted you to be BETTER." Precisely my feelings towards the Spider-Man 3.0 reboot, which I found a generally disappointing mess, with some very good things about it that did things differently...and refreshingly. I like the fact that it doesn't take itself too seriously—the Tobey McGuire and Andrew Garfield versions had their moments of mirth, but got mired down in the soap opera aspects of the character and the weight of the "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" philosophy. This Spider-Man entry feels like a hyper-After-School Special that dispenses with the "Life with Archie" aspects of the traditional mythos ("Hmmm: Gwen or Mary Jane?") and features a cast far more diverse than merely blond and brunette. That's good. It plays around with the teen-hero aspect of Spidey—he's supposed to be 15 in the movie and Holland is 21 (McGuire started at age 27 and Garfield at age 29, the latter two abandoning High School for college) and sticks him in the very awkward high-school years of the character's origins in the early days of Spider-Man's history.
I like the fact that we don't have to go through the motions of seeing his origin story—bitten by a radio-active spider and suddenly finding himself with out-sized strength, sticky appendages, and the acrobatic skills and balanced of a headlining Cirque du Soleil performer. Here, Spider-man simply is. Doesn't matter how, and that he's young, eager, and learning is part and parcel of the origin, anyway. So, I'm glad we don't have to watch Krypton explode again...or his parent get shot in an alley...again. Let him be...in media res.
I like the fact that—like the recent Wonder Woman—there is no revenge plot. He's not trying to avenge the murder of his Uncle Ben (portrayed earlier by Cliff Robertson and Martin Sheen) or even girl-friend Gwen Stacy. He wants to be Spider-Man because being Spider-Man is cool! He also wants to be just like his hero Tony Stark—who has provided him with a too-gadgety Spider-Man suit (which gets very tiresome after awhile, more on that later).
But, the best part about it has little to do with Spider-Man or the new guy who's portraying him—it's the "villain." The best part of Spider-Man: Homecoming is Michael Keaton (former Bat-man, former "Bird-Man"). His Adrian Toomes aka "The Vulture" starts out as a blue-collar guy (actually he remains a blue-collar guy although he starts sporting a full collar later on—a neat touch) who's salvage company is in charge of cleaning up Stark Tower after the big dust-up The Avengers had with the Chitauri in downtown New York. "The world had changed," he opines to one of his grunts as they pick through the rubble, finding all sorts of neat other-worldly tech.
While he's ruminating on that and instructing his crew how they should use the alien gadgets to take other alien gadgets apart, they are interrupted by a police-escorted group from Stark Industries (including Tyne Daly!) telling them to cease and desist. Stark Industries has used their political clout to take over the salvage operation—Toomes and his crew are out of a job. "Times are changing," says Toomes as he pockets a couple items in secret. "We need to change, too."
It's curious. The focus of the Spider-Man movies should be Peter Parker, but here, with the puerile adventures of kid Parker and his High School buddies not providing anything of depth and his general dorkiness, you gravitate to Toomes, whose character is at least competent. He's not unbalanced, he's opportunistic, entrepreneurial, and he's got a well thought-out defense for doing everything he's doing. Yes, his "crew" is selling alien and extra-dimensional tech to criminals, but to hear Toomes tell it (to Parker), he's no different than Parker's hero, Tony Stark, who started out—and, for all intents and purposes, still is—an arms-dealer. But, Toomes sees a difference: "People like Stark—they're not like us—you and me. We build their roads, fight their wars, eat their table-scraps..." He thinks he's doing what he has to do to survive and to keep his family afloat and solvent. He's seen people go off the path and do well, and, for his family...why not?
Keaton is at the top of his game here. Laconic, thoughtful, dangerous, he has a lot of every-man bonhomie and you're drawn to him. But, the best scene in the film (which would be a crime if I spoiled by revealing it in any way) is his. And, it is played mostly silently with looks and deflecting casual dialog. Then, he delivers terms of engagement and he threatens our hero, his eyebrows arched, a smile on his face. What Keaton is doing is a bit reminiscent of what his co-star Jack Nicholson did playing The Joker opposite his Batman—there is a theatricality to it, but tamped down, malevolent but smoldering, and stated not as threat, but as fact. It's no wonder Tom Holland looks scared shit-less during the scene—Keaton is the villain and has stolen his movie.
So, that's the good parts: some good casting, some clever dialog here and there. Peter has an interesting story-arc—he begins wanting to be an Avenger like he was in Captain America: Civil War (Peter has done a selfie-video of his adventure in the other movie—from another studio) and realizes, eventually through the course of the movie, that he shouldn't be an Avenger, but can do the most good just by being "your friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man" (as the saying goes). And to have that arc, Spidey 3.0 has inserted itself into the tangled web of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so, yes, there's a lot of the MCU poster-boy, Tony Stark—some of which is necessary (Toomes' motivation is squarely on the shoulders of Stark), but a lot of which is Robert Downey, Jr. collecting a pay-check. Chris Evans shows up in a running gag as Captain America keeps turning up in Public Service Announcements "for the kids"*
Here's the issue—it's all for a gag—it's tied to the Marvel movies, sure, but it also undercuts one of its major characters, doesn't respect him. I'm not sure what the internal logic of having Captain America be a role-model/spokes-hero "for the kids," since, after Civil War he's now considered an "outlaw" in the Marvel movies. But, hey, it's for a gag and another tie-in to the popular movies, right, so what's the harm? That it makes no sense probably shouldn't matter, as it's a "Spider-Man" movie, which should be it's own "thing," a Universe in a bottle...but for marketing purposes—to make sure there aren't any entries like the third Tobey McGuire and the second Andrew Garfield movies that have a slight down-tick in revenues to make studio executives nervous—they bring in popular characters from other Marvel movies...and...diminish them. Curious strategy, that.
Also, the presence of Stark contributes to something I find just annoying, but it's annoying for a significant amount of running time in the film: Spidey's suit. Looks good, okay. But, over the course of the movie, you find that there are so many goo-gah's and other gizmo's in it that you could imagine that given a good remote control, you don't even need a person in it.**The eye-holes respond to emotions (a trait picked up from Deadpool) and the mask has a "heads-up display" like Iron Man, they can control the types of webs he shoots, and, most egregiously, he has a "Siri" voice in his suit (voiced by Jennifer Connelly), who gives him so much information that there is no need for him to think. But, it does give him plenty of time to talk, which he does incessantly while he's trapped overnight in a weapons warehouse. Guess it beats trying to find an exit somewhere.
Need a lot less of this.
The thing is, it's not the suit that people like—it's the character inside it—although Marvel Studios tried to make him as much like Iron Man as possible, it will all be for naught if audiences don't respond to Holland and the character they've written. The movie makes the point, itself; after a botched confrontation with "The Vulture" on a Staten Island ferry, Stark's Iron Man comes to save the day and dresses Spider-Man down...by taking away his tech-suit. "I'm nothing without the suit," bleats Peter. "If you're nothing without the suit, then you shouldn't have it!" Stark replies. Hopefully, when he gets it back, they'll have dialed down the tech. The character is fun enough when he has to improvise a get-up in the third act. And more competent.
But, the thing that really disappointed me is a problem that past Spider-Man films have had—a needlessly frenetic pace and editing by a cuisinart. It's happened in Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (the ones fewer people saw and caused the respective re-boots). The timing is off on a few things because there seems to be an attempt to shoe-horn as many bits of business and details as possible, but not to dwell on them (one isn't given enough time to notice them!). Look at that fight gif above. See how things don't seem very smooth and jerk around a bit. That's because the director—or it could be 2nd, even 3rd unit-director—didn't have a basic design strategy that would make the fight work as a whole, followable sequence. They basically took bits and pieces, added some inserts and just thought it would come out looking good in the editing room. It didn't, and it doesn't.
"See? Superman isn't the only hero who's a Christ-allegory!"
And once we get into the big battle set-pieces, the action (which is now more CGI than practical stage work) just becomes nearly incomprehensible and hard to follow—you can't see who's where and what spatial relationship they have with each other to determine the sequence of danger. It's just individual shots that are supposed to give you a sense of action highlights, but not how they relate to each other. Combine that with the tendency to have the Spider-Man fight sequences run a little too fast, especially in the swooping-and-dodging departments (which I suspect has more to do with trying to make the CGI pass scrutiny than anything else—come to think of it, the worst fight sequences of the previous "Spider-Man" films also occurred at night as this one does), and it makes you wonder if all the various FX houses go into a room to actually coordinate what the sequences will look like, as opposed to individual shots. They might be technically brilliant, but do they share the same framework to make the collection of shots legible? Not very. In fact, the last time, they had really good action sequences was way back in Spider-Man 2 (Series 1.0).
So, there's less doom-and-gloom and Spider-moping in this Spider-Man movie. But, I can't say things have noticeably improved. In fact, the character seems even less important in his own series than when he started to be crowded out by villains. Maybe someday there will be another good one along the lines of Spider-Man 2—still one of the best movies in the super-hero genre—but this one isn't it. This third time has some charm, but it's not enough to keep it off the bargain racks at your friendly neighborhood supermarket.
* The punch-line of which is Cap showing up in the completely superfluous Final Credits Teaser that completely nerd-bashes the idea of sitting through the Credits to watch to the teaser: "Hi, I'm Captain America. Here to talk to you about one of the most valuable traits a student or soldier can have. Patience. Sometimes, patience is the key to victory. Sometimes, it leads to very little, and it seems like it's not worth it, and you wonder why you waited so long for something so disappointing... How many more of these?"
** There's an antecedent in the comics for this: Spider-man has an enemy named "Venom"—he was briefly in Spider-Man 3 (the only #3 there has been), which is essentially a Spider-Man costume that possesses people (yeah, don't even ask, True Believer...)
The latest "Avengers" movie comes out on May first. For the next month of Fridays before the premiere, we'll be looking back at the movies that formed the stepping stones for this latest one, starting with the character that started the whole story-line that led up to the forming of the group, and served as a sort of template for the "official" Marvel movie franchise: Iron Man.
Iron Man, Iron Man Does whatever an iron can. Presses pants very fine Keeps that crease right in line Hey there, there goes the Iron Man!
Marvel comics writer-artist John Byrne's parody of the "Spider-man" song
Iron Man- the first superhero film to be produced by an off-shoot of the company creating the material (Rival DC Comics' out-put is produced by Warner Brothers, whose parent company also owns DC) manages to not fall into the Inescapable Doom-Trap that plagues so many comic-book adaptations—turgid respect for the material. It seems like so many of these films (Spider-man, Superman Returns, Batman Begins, Hulk, Sin City) think they're creating The Song of Bernadette, instead of adapting a comic-book whose target audience is somewhere between five years old and arrested development. Kids (and adults) enjoyed these highly-derivative adventures*because of their swash-buckling derring-do and "can-do" attitude, but so many of their filmed adaptations feel that they have to be encased in welschmertz two inches thick (an unhappy consequence of the Marvel "soap-opera/romance comics" style of writing in the 60's), as if the makers were incapable of transferring the joy of the source, or were ashamed of the movies' origins. Iron Man, though it has some elements of that, neatly skirts around the heavy moments with a happy combination of Robert Downey, jr.'s manic performance and Jon Favreau's taking advantage of Downey's quirky rhythms to make the thing breezy, fast-paced and fun, despite the amount of collateral damage inflicted on the surroundings and the people in front of them. There is just enough action here to give you a taste of the "When Titans Clash!" atmosphere of the Marvel paradigm, and for once, one of those fights convinced me that comic book action could be pulled off and made just as dynamic on the big-screen (Superman's saving of a damaged 747 in Superman Returns is another). Fortunately, the slug-fests never last too long so that it turns into a "Transformers"-style overkill sequence. The film-makers know when enough is enough, and make the most of it.
How's the story? Well, it updates it to the present-day where munitions billionaire Anthony Stark (Downey) finds himself blown up by his own weaponry and is taken captive by a "terrorist cell" (The "Ten Rings"--which means they're twice as corrupt as the International Olympic Committee) living in the hills of Afghanistan, with only an electromagnet, engineered by his fellow captive Yensin, keeping the Stark shrapnel in his body from going to his heart (what there is of it). He is instructed to create a prototype of the "shoot-and-forget" Jericho missile that he was demonstrating to the military at the time of his capture. As the Ten Rings have a hefty supply of Stark munitions, he starts to cannibalize them for work on the missile. But, because the Kunar Province isn't really that far from Damascus, he has a change of heart (oh...heh) and creates, Macgyver-like, a suit of armor to use against his captors in a desperate escape attempt. If you haven't already suspended disbelief, the rest of the movie won't improve things. But let's just say, things get worse after they get better.
There's a lot of heavy stuff being thrown at the audience throughout the movie, the plight of refugees, the complicity of arms manufacturers who don't take sides but will take a check, and the "with great responsibility, comes not-too-great pontificating," but Favreau, taking his cue from Downey, keeps all this heavy stuff light and frothy and brushes it away to get to the fun stuff. Downey's Tony Stark is a heavy-metal Bruce Wayne, a PHD/MA with OCD and ADD, and his higher-brain power makes him the smartest smart-ass in the room and the actor's physical comedy work during the R&D, stateside, of Stark's "IronMan" armor is consistently funny, and for all the CGI supporting it, it's Downey's performance that holds your interest, reminiscent of his incredible work impersonating Chaplin. He is so good, and so in command, that it takes Terrence Howard and Jeff Bridges everything they have to try and match him and not get blown off the screen by him (Bridges, yes, Howard, no), while Gwyneth Paltrow (with the worst name ever given a character in comics-"Pepper" Potts!) can only collapse in giggles, which given the love-sick "girl Friday" character foisted on her, seems appropriate (although more than once she gives off a "Kirsten Dunst vibe" that seems derivative).
Favreau's work is consistently good, although he betrays fan-boy roots by basing sequences on 2001, Star Wars, and Alien,** and not diverging Iron Man's flying scenes too far from The Rocketeer. In fact, much of the slapstick humor of getting used to your rocket-pack derives from that film. The persistent calling to mind of the "Black Sabbath" song tends to outwear its welcome as well. The folks I saw it with brought up the fact that that armor wouldn't have quite so easy a time dealing with the modern weaponry of the Iraq War on display, considering that armored Humvees (the kind seen in the first sequence of the film) don't stand up well at all. But that didn't faze the fan-boys in the audience (one of whom sitting down the aisle from me who could have been the model for "The Simpsons' "comic book guy" guffawed, stamped his foot and yelled his encouragement at the screen—he, sadly, left before the the End-Credits that finished with an Ultimate sequence that would have blown his tiny little mind). Nor did it faze them that Tony Stark was continuing to party and live the high-life while the conflict in Afghanistan continued on. Nobody found that ironic. Some hero.
* (Although Stan Lee--who has another cameo in this one, though it's mercifully short--will tell you otherwise, Iron-Man's steely roots can be traced back to Dumas, and some cribbed elements from the Distinguished Competition) ** "Prove it" you says, defensively. Fine. The POV shots inside Stark's and Stane's robot helmets recall the shots of the Discovery astronauts in their pods, the read-outs reflecting off their faces, and "Jarvis" is no longer the Stark butler--how very "Alfred" that would be--but now is a voice-provided computer, ala HAL. For Star Wars, Yinsen pulls a "Han Solo" early on , running , screaming down a cave-corridor after a couple of guards, only to have PRECISELY the same outcome, and Favreau includes a POV of the "IronMan" mask approaching Stark's face ala Revenge of the Sith. And for no other reason to acknowledge and crib the same creepy feeling it evokes, he has the same "singing chains" sequence from the first Alien movie. These are NOT coincidences.
That’s easier said than done. Time is in short supply for Tony—the Palladium-powered pacemaker keeping his heart going is killing him, throwing him into a jet-powered tail-spin of narcissistic self-pity and hedonism. And it’s hard to get any elbow-room for all the people trying to set-up an intervention, tough-love or no. The one person who seems to seek nothing from the head of Stark Industries is voluptuous Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson) from legal, who’s a whiz at business transition components, but can also take down Stark’s driver/bodyman “Happy” Hogan (director Jon Favreau) in the tightest skirt possible. Tony’s watching her, but not the way he should.
At this point, one should be aware that Iron Man 2 is suffering from some serious character bloat, a traditional problem with super-hero sequels that decide to take their eyes off the hero and onto the guest-villains. Fortunately, scenarist Justin Theroux takes a story breakdown from The Dark Knight and integrates all the conflicts into a single story…of Tony Stark, used up and spent, finding his worth despite a life of increasingly attention-deficited indulgence, and, instead of using and being used, getting something from an unexpected source in an unlikely way that re-charges his batteries.
It's all about Tony, you see. He's always been selfish and self-absorbed, but with a ticker that's counting down his limited moments, he becomes even more internal and narcissistic, deciding to use that time in pursuit of new thrills and new highs, though they may be increasingly self-destructive. Those jets in his feet and pulse generators in his hands only show that he's burning his candle at both ends. A celebration of all things Stark at the StarkExpo in Flushing, New York provides a backdrop for his inner struggle. A "city of the future," it was the brain-child of Tony's father, Howard ("Mad Men's" John Slattery, seen in archive footage), a combination of Hughes and Disney—StarkExpo, amusingly, has a theme written by Disney-musical scribe Richard Sherman—father and son are seen in Stark contrast: Howard was a giver and Tony, a taker. And Tony's understanding of their differences is the major character arc of the movie. It takes Tony out of the self-imposed metal bubble (represented by the Iron Man suit) that he has placed himself in. It also gives him a second chance at life.
That arc, and the movie, also provide plenty of opportunities to see some of the quirkiest and quickest actors in the business sparking off each other. One of the problems with the first “Iron Man” was that no one could match Robert Downey’s energy and ability to riff in a scene. In Iron Man 2, almost everybody can, and it’s a particular joy to see Downey playing “Can You Top This?” with the likes of Rourke and Rockwell (at his smarmy salesman best), but also Clark Gregg (returning as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Coulson) and Don Cheadle. Even Gwyneth Paltrowbrings her best game, never once succumbing to Downey-inspired giggle-fits (as she did often in the first film), and matching his speed. Johansson and Jackson, in a completely different tactic, merely have to dead-pan their way through their scenes with him to register. They’re supposed to be mysterious, anyway.
Are there problems? Sure. The action scenes are best when Rourke and Downey’s antagonists are spitting sparks at each other—Ivan Vanko’s energy-whips have the same animated fierceness of the Id-Monster from Forbidden Planet—but most of the fights are swooping flame-trails and orange explosions in their wake (not very involving). And despite starting the film fast out of the gate under the Paramount logo, Favreau indulges in some long set-ups to punch-lines with little pay-off—one of them involving his character in an extended fist-fight that drags along, increasing his screen-time. There are too many times when the film is one big TV monitor for full-frame large graphics of news reports, and there may be a couple of cameos too many.
But, quibbles aside, Iron Man 2 might be a bit better than its predecessor, which managed to make a nice breezy transition to the screen, and sparked the imagination of its audience. A lot of the credit must go to Downey, who brought more energy than any number of “Transformers”-like Rock’em Sock’em Robot fights could muster. The stakes are raised performance-wise (and robot-wise) here, but this sequel continues to soar, fueled primarily by its lead actor.
Rust Never Sleeps or The Hot Mess Protocol (Chaotica in Extremis)
One still finds it incredible, if not amazing, that the most popular film-series in the Marvel Universe*continues to be "Iron Man." Don't get me wrong. Tony Stark's character is an important one in the pulps (are they still using pulp paper?), but relatively minor next to Captain America, Spider-man, The Fantastic Four or The Hulk. Now, Cap and Spidey're doing fine in the flickers, but the others, not so much. And the "Iron Man" series is the lynch-pin for the "Avengers" movies Marvel is creating as major events in the film-calendar. The secret to its success seems to be, single-handedly, the casting of Robert Downey Jr. as billionaire-tech Tony Stark, a move that was initially resisted by Marvel. But Downey's refusal to stick to text, traditional acting rhythms, and mercurial energy makes even the most generic of roles a circus act, balancing on a tight-wire, never being predictable and finding interesting ways, by body and soul, to entertain, even when cocooned in a tin can. He's the best special effect in the "Iron Man" series, and dominated and energized the other characters in Joss Whedon's first "Avengers" movie.
Now, out of the factory comes Iron Man Three (as it is presented in the titles), the third film where most film series (post-Star Wars, and excepting the films that choose to bifurcate their last chapters) seem to stop, usually because either star-salaries and their negotiations are unsustainable, a logical character arc is achieved, or the film-makers have run out of ideas, or audiences, of interest. Three seems to be a good stopping point for super-hero movies, too. Face it, by the third movie, it's all about the toys and the merchandising. In this one, there's a veritable garage of Iron Man suits in enough variations that they'll be clogging toy store-shelves in a week (and bargain bins in six months). That's not the reason to see the movie, though, as each suit has little to no screen-time, with no explanation of what they are or what makes them special in any way.
This one is a movie version of the comics' "Extremis" storyline, originally written by Warren Ellis, but changed significantly and inserting one of Gear-head's major villains, the Mandarin—(as portrayed by Ben Kingsley) but not in a way that will impress comics fans, although general audiences might find the use amusing and apt for the times. Tony Stark is having issues with PTSD from his encounter with "Gods, aliens, and wormholes" in the Avengers movie**Stark Industries (and it's CEO, Pepper Potts—Gwyneth Paltrow, once again) is being schmoozed by the creepy head of AIM, Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), while Tony, sleep-deprived by nightmares, vows to deal with Mandarin-orchestrated terror attacks that have become personal—Jon Favreau's Happy Hogan is left in a coma after an attack on one of America's great industrial centers, Graumman's Chinese Theater, by creepily glowing human bombs. Tony calls out the Mandarin, inciting an attack on his Malibu cliff-house, leaving him presumed dead and without resources, hiding out in Tennessee. If all this isn't complicated enough, Col. James Rhodes, the "Iron Patriot," (Don Cheadle) goes after the Mandarin himself at the behest of the government, and is captured, making his combat suit a threat, as well.
That's the plot—colluding and combusting—and Tony must rely less on his established mechanical persona than his own wits and ingenuity. Would that the filmmakers were, as well. Favreau, who oversaw the first two movies, executive-produced this one. The writer-director of this mess is Shane Black, who collaborated with Downey in the not-bad movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and he makes the first two efforts seem brilliant by comparison. Oh, the charm of Downey is still there—there's one particular scene between him, Paltrow and Rebecca Hall in a three-way snark-argument that's particularly nice—and concerted efforts have been made to keep him out of the suit and his own man throughout most of film. But the movie's gears seize up every time a big action kerfluffle begins, and the only rhyme or reason for shot placements seems to be to keep the multiple cameras recording the events out of line of sight with each other. The editing suffers from some odd inserts in the middle of the action that merely confuses, rather than informs what is going on.***
And, it seems a little obvious to accuse an "Iron Man" movie of a deus ex machina overdose, but this one suffers greatly from it and finally breaks down in a denouement that polishes and shines everything in a nice little package and makes you wonder "that easy, huh?" This film could have used a little Geritol, frankly, and feels a little like spinning its wheels, all the while you hear a lot of grinding in the works. The film proudly states that "Tony Stark will return."
Oh. Wow. Can't wait.
Tony Stark kinda, you, know, uh, explains it all for you.
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