the underdog of summer

I am an avid movie fan. I am also an avid comic book fan. Two things I will geek out on any day with little warning. Therefore, as far as math is concerned, if you were to put those two elements together logic states that it should make a good combo and I should be very well pleased. Unfortunately, as far as the majority goes, I have not been very happy with the comic book film industry. For every Batman Begins we have a Spider-man, Fantastic Four & Ghost Rider to push the scales back to crappy movies being in favor. In fact, it is more likely to get an actual good comic book movie from a sequel than from a first attempt (i.e. going from X-Men to X-Men II). So I am going to be honest with you, when they released the announcement that Iron Man was in the making I was conflicted. The fanboy in me was excited to get to geek out at another super hero flick and the cinesnob in me was grumbling with angst because I knew that the chances of it actually being good were slim to none. But now, after closer speculation & despite the fact that it is going to have to contend against the return of Batman and Indiana, Iron Man is looking quite promising. Here’ why:

1) The people at Marvel took a very odd but potentially very smart chance and named John Favreau, the genius who brought Elf into our lives, as director.

2) Probably the best casting choice yet in comic book films (right next to Mr. Bale obviously) was made and Robert Downey Jr. was appointed the role of Tony Stark. The dude is channeling Iron Man straight from the pages.

3) The trailers actually make it look like the movie is going to not only be true to the themes & characters of the original comci book but it will also actually be in good taste and believable. (Did anybody understand why in Spider-Man 3 that getting an alien symbiote attached to you equaled turning emo and learning classical dancing moves?) The witty quips recited by Mr. Downey are humorous but not corny, unlike the majority of the script in FF4’s first film.

All in all, I may actually let me inner fanboy get totally excited and not keep him restrained like I planned on so he wouldn’t get disappointed again like after seeing The Hulk (i know, the graphics kicked ass but that movie sucked the big one).