Kevin Hoffman’s Blog

I took the advice of a friend of mine and steered clear of the "normal" movie theaters and went a little out of the way to go to a DLP movie theater. The experience of comparing a regular movie theater to a DLP movie theater is like comparing standard def analog TV with a 1080i HDTV signal.

The movie itself was awesome. I was pleasantly surprised. I expected, wrongly so, another loosely connected chain of high-impact special effects moments like most of the other recent comic book adaptations have been. It’s a summer action movie and in general, I go to a summer action movie to see, as I said, a loosely connected chain of special effects sequences (e.g. Transformers/Michael Bay).

Obviously I had a few problems with some of the physics in the film, but I learned a long time ago to forget about physics in Hollywood movies... Asking for realistic physics in a Hollywood action movie is like asking for honesty and professionalism in politics.

Iron Man is one of the first of what I hope is a string of comic adaptation movies where the hero isn't some whitewashed super-perfect "superman". Tony Stark has flaws, and he's got some big ones, but he is a truly well-rounded character.

Plus, the Iron Man suit kicks ASS and the action scenes in the movie were awesome and they didn't overwhelm the movie itself. If Tom Clancy were to write a comic book/super hero movie, it would end up a lot like Iron Man. 

I give the movie 4 out of 5 stars... only because the movie suffers from the same problem all "origin" movies suffer from - balancing screen time between character/history development and current-day action. Iron Man does a better job than most with it, though.

One thing I saw during the movie was a preview for Death Note!! This is one of the coolest Anime series ever, based on one of the coolest Manga series ever. Japanese theaters had a live-action version of this Anime series and it out-performed pretty much everything at the box office, won awards, and has a huge following. The only problem - I can't find a region 1 DVD of the movie.... but now, on May 20th and 21st, Death Note is coming to select theaters nationwide. I can barely contain my excitement!

tags: ironman  movies  entertainment  review  deathnote  

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