I saw this over the weekend and was simply blown away. Iron Man is the best movie adaptation of a comic book character since Batman Begins and one of the best, period.

The story of industrialist Tony Stark (played to the hilt by Robert Downey Jr.) as he invents the “Iron Man” armor as a way of escaping terrorist agents of the Mandarin (updated from 1960s North Vietnamese communists) is smart, funny and bold. Downey’s performance is a showpiece and from the opening moments as he banters with G.I.s in a Humvee convoy, he never fails to impress. Gwyneth Paltrow (as his assistant Pepper Potts), Jeff Bridges (as Obadiah Stane) and Terrence Howard (as Stark’s best friend James Rhodes) give good performances themselves and serve to establish the microcosm that is Stark’s world.

The effects are fantastic, with Industrial Light and Magic once again proving they can create the impossible. The armor looks incredible and, most surprisingly, plausible. The attention to detail was astonishing and watching it in action a delight. ILM really outdid themselves here.

The story is a classic origin story, complete with the obligatory bad guy. However, unlike the Fantastic Four, a good balance is struck between exposition and action, which gives the movie a great sense of inertia. Not once did I feel everything slowed to the point where I was hoping something would happen just to get things moving again. The dialogue is dry, sarcastic and Downey does a great job with it.

After having to endure a slew of mediocre comic book movies over the last couple of years, Iron Man was refreshing. Not only is it a great comic book movie, it’s a good movie over all. Director Jon Favreau should be given the green light for the remaining two films in his proposed trilogy yesterday and Downey may have found the role which will be his Captain Jack Sparrow.

-K

Awake – the opposite of what I had become less than halfway through this snorefest from director Joby Harold, starring Hayden Christensen, Jessica Alba and Terrence Howard.

Seriously. I got hit because I was snoring loudly. I then proceeded to go back to sleep.

-K

It’s that time of year again. Only a month or so before the summer movie season begins, but even more important, it’s a little over two months before Pixar’s latest effort hits the big screen: Wall-E.

The last film Andrew Stanton directed was Finding Nemo, so if you’ve seen that one, then you’ve got an idea of what’s in store. If you haven’t, seek professional help. There’s something very wrong with you.

Enjoy the trailer.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=fCcCZOSAtxA&fmt=18[/youtube]

-K

Greg over at Real Life is running a storyline in which he and his wife agree that each person has to watch a movie chosen by the other as a way of rectifying their ignorance about certain genres of film. Two days in and it’s already broken when “musical” clashes against “Kubrick.” However, even funnier is a section from an email sent to Greg from a reader about The Sound of Music:

DON’T get tricked into watching Sound of Music! I was promised Nazis – my mind thought “Like Indiana Jones Nazis? Sweet!” – but don’t be enticed! The movie is THREE HOURS LONG. THREE!! It would be a 60 minute movie if they weren’t breaking out into song ever 4 minutes to make 2 minute conversations take 10 minutes. And the Nazis? Last 20 minutes. They tease you with the possibility of Nazi vs Freedom fighter battling throughout the movie, but they wait until you’re about to go into a coma after two and a half hours of singing to finally bring in the action. There’s something in there about a nun turned nanny turned back into nun turned into band leader that takes up 90% of the movie. It’s interesting, but there’s way too much singing. Beware!!

It’s funny because I too was promised Nazis as the enticement for finally sitting down to watch this movie. However, it’s all bait and switch. The writer is correct – Nazis barely even show up in the movie. It’s terribly disappointing and almost made me wish the final scenes were the Von Trapps being loaded into a boxcar on their way to Buchenwald.

-K

In April, 1992, Chris McCandless began hiking along the Stampede Trail, near Denali National Park, Alaska. Carrying few provisions, including a .22 rifle, a bag of rice and a book on the local flora and fauna, he soon discovered an abandoned bus and made it his base camp. For almost 120 days, McCandless lived off his rice, small game and birds, and edible plants that grew in the area. On September 6, 1992, his body was found by a group of hikers. He had been dead for almost two weeks.

An adaptation by Sean Penn (who wrote and directed the film) of Jon Krakauer’s book by the same name, Into the Wild chronicles McCandless journey beginning shortly after he graduated from Emory University in 1990 and proceeded to donate his savings – $24,000 – to Oxfam. The film follows his adventures of the next two years as he drives westward, abandons his car, and hitchhikes his way through California; his work in a grain elevator in South Dakota, where he first begins to talk about an Alaska trip; his kayak trip down the Colorado River all the way into Mexico, ultimately winding up in the Gulf of California; and the people he met and befriended, all the while traveling and living under a pseudonym – Alexander Supertramp.

More dramatization than actual documentary, the film does stay close to the facts that are known about McCandless and his two-year sojourn, during which time he had no contact with his family, friends, or anyone who would have known him as anything other than “Alex.” Emile Hirsch, who I last saw in The Girl Next Door, puts in a great performance, as does Hal Holbrook as Ron Franz, an older man who befriends McCandless right before he leaves for his “great Alaskan adventure.”

I suppose the oddest thing is that, for whatever reason, this movie managed to get under my skin. Maybe I recognize the headstrong personality in myself. Maybe it’s the idea of doing what you want to do, rather than what others expect. Maybe it’s as Morgan says – that I see he was satisfied with his life when there’s so much dissatisfaction in my own. I don’t know.

What I do know is that McCandless has been written and talked about as everything from a suicidal kook, to a modern day Thoreau, living life away from the corrupting influence of society. And any story that manages to draw so many opinions from opposite ends of the spectrum deserves to be known.

-K