IRON MAN
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges
Director: Jon Favereau
Written by: Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway.
Another Marvel comic arriving on the big screen, Iron Man, brought bang up to date, tells the tale of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr), a genius weapons inventor/industrialist, who when showcasing the ultimate weapon – Jericho - to the US army in Afghanistan, gets taken hostage by the terrorist group The Ten Rings, and forced to build a Jericho for them.
Hooked up to a car battery as an emergency preventative from shrapnel entering his heart, an injury sustained during the kidnapping, Tony, with help from another hostage instead creates the Ark reactor, a new type of power generator, which replaces the battery and proves this previously untested theory possible. Following on from this he designs and builds Iron Man, a suit he uses to gain escape from the terrorists.
On returning to America, after three months in captivity, he renounces weapons building in a public press conference, much to the chagrin of his mentor Obediah (Jeff Bridges), Tony’s late father’s best friend and Tony’s business partner since the death of his father. Obediah brushes off this momentary lapse of sanity to the press and tries to talk ‘sense’ into Tony.
Having seen the devastation his inventions have created, Tony continues to develop a new and improved Iron Man in secret, and upon discovering that someone has double dealt Stark Industry weapons to the terrorists, goes on a jaunt to Afghanistan to put this to rights. Unfortunately, this is not in line with Obediah’s plans, who was the one who ordered the hit on Tony in the first place, is trying to force him out of his own company and brings his true motives to light.
Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), is Stark’s long suffering assistant, harbouring a secret crush on her lady killer boss. She does whatever Tony needs, including sometimes ‘taking out the trash’ a reference to one of the many ladies Tony has brought home for the night. Their relationship never gets more romantic then an almost-kiss, and paves the way for some interesting action if there is to be a sequel.
Iron Man doesn’t have as much action as was expected, although there is enough and very well executed CGI at that. However it focuses on showing the kind of character Tony was before being taken hostage, wealthy, spoilt, child prodigy, with little regard for others, and who he becomes after his traumatic experience, although as the last scene shows – he doesn’t change every facet of his personality! The movie has a very ‘go America – fighting the good fight’ feel to it, as can only be expected by this type of superhero movie, one supposes. Robert Downey Jr. is excellent as Tony and has good back up with Jeff Bridges playing the corrupt Obediah, and evidentally loving every minute of playing the two faced baddie. Gwyneth Paltrow moves away from her usually emotionally deep roles, to play Pepper and does a good job also – though the role is hardly a challenging one.
Iron Man does exactly what it says on the tin – it’s a entertaining couple of hours, and everyone gets what they expected, action, drama and a little (almost) romance.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Smart People
SMART PEOPLE
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Thomas Hayden Church, Ellen Page, Sarah Jessica Parker
Directed By: Noam Murro
Written By: Mark Poirer
Smart People stars Dennis Quaid as Laurence Wetherhold, a tenured professor at Carnegie Mellon, a prestigious university in Pennsylvania. He has two children, the poetry writing, misunderstood James, (Ashton Holmes) and Vanessa, (Ellen Page) his 17 year old extremely intelligent and emotionally stunted daughter. Given her father’s behaviour, her high levels of intelligence, her father’s expectations of her, and the fact that her mother died an unspecified number of years ago, her emotional ineptitude is perhaps unsurprising.
Thomas Hayden Church plays Chuck, Laurence’s adopted brother, a point Laurence makes sure to stress every time the relationship is mentioned. Chuck comes into the family because Laurence had an accident and cannot drive due to a trauma related seizure and Vanessa is too busy getting the perfect score on her S.A.T.’s to ‘be his chauffeur for six months’.
Chuck is the antithesis of Laurence and promotes everything Laurence is against.He moves from job to job, and borrows money from Laurence every time he sees him. He gets Vanessa stoned and takes her drinking, in an attempt to humanize her, to show her that there’s more to life then being ‘smart’. Unfortunately Chuck’s attempts to be friends with his niece, lead her to believe he is interested in her romantically and she almost ruins the budding friendship by making a move on him.
This is a character driven story and details the realisation that Laurence has regarding his own character and shortcomings and how it has affected his family and his relationships with people, within the family, as well as his colleagues and students, who dislike him to a person. While he has no ‘epiphany’ as he tells girlfriend Janet, (Sarah Jessica Parker), he does attempt to make amends to his behaviour and tries to become a better person.
Janet is a former student of his, who was put off studying English as a result of his teaching methods, and switched to Biology instead, leading her to become head of the ER and the person who treats Laurence on his initial entry to hospital. She then proceeds to date him, despite the best efforts of Vanessa to destroy the relationship. Although Laurence is quite capable of destroying it by himself, and almost does when Janet realises he is not prepared to make any changes to himself, and is just taking her for granted.
Smart People is sharp and funny, well written and well cast. Ellen Page is in danger of becoming type-cast as the intellectual sarcastic teenager, but it is a role she plays to perfection. Thomas Hayden Church is excellent as the ne’er do well, black sheep brother bringing plenty of light relief to the film, and most of the laughs.
Dennis Quaid plays the jaded, pompous, arrogant Laurence, who realises the error of his ways, almost too late, with conviction. He also realises that he can’t change everything all at once and makes a slow but steady journey back to being a functioning human being. Smart People is slow in places but a worthwhile watch.
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Thomas Hayden Church, Ellen Page, Sarah Jessica Parker
Directed By: Noam Murro
Written By: Mark Poirer
Smart People stars Dennis Quaid as Laurence Wetherhold, a tenured professor at Carnegie Mellon, a prestigious university in Pennsylvania. He has two children, the poetry writing, misunderstood James, (Ashton Holmes) and Vanessa, (Ellen Page) his 17 year old extremely intelligent and emotionally stunted daughter. Given her father’s behaviour, her high levels of intelligence, her father’s expectations of her, and the fact that her mother died an unspecified number of years ago, her emotional ineptitude is perhaps unsurprising.
Thomas Hayden Church plays Chuck, Laurence’s adopted brother, a point Laurence makes sure to stress every time the relationship is mentioned. Chuck comes into the family because Laurence had an accident and cannot drive due to a trauma related seizure and Vanessa is too busy getting the perfect score on her S.A.T.’s to ‘be his chauffeur for six months’.
Chuck is the antithesis of Laurence and promotes everything Laurence is against.He moves from job to job, and borrows money from Laurence every time he sees him. He gets Vanessa stoned and takes her drinking, in an attempt to humanize her, to show her that there’s more to life then being ‘smart’. Unfortunately Chuck’s attempts to be friends with his niece, lead her to believe he is interested in her romantically and she almost ruins the budding friendship by making a move on him.
This is a character driven story and details the realisation that Laurence has regarding his own character and shortcomings and how it has affected his family and his relationships with people, within the family, as well as his colleagues and students, who dislike him to a person. While he has no ‘epiphany’ as he tells girlfriend Janet, (Sarah Jessica Parker), he does attempt to make amends to his behaviour and tries to become a better person.
Janet is a former student of his, who was put off studying English as a result of his teaching methods, and switched to Biology instead, leading her to become head of the ER and the person who treats Laurence on his initial entry to hospital. She then proceeds to date him, despite the best efforts of Vanessa to destroy the relationship. Although Laurence is quite capable of destroying it by himself, and almost does when Janet realises he is not prepared to make any changes to himself, and is just taking her for granted.
Smart People is sharp and funny, well written and well cast. Ellen Page is in danger of becoming type-cast as the intellectual sarcastic teenager, but it is a role she plays to perfection. Thomas Hayden Church is excellent as the ne’er do well, black sheep brother bringing plenty of light relief to the film, and most of the laughs.
Dennis Quaid plays the jaded, pompous, arrogant Laurence, who realises the error of his ways, almost too late, with conviction. He also realises that he can’t change everything all at once and makes a slow but steady journey back to being a functioning human being. Smart People is slow in places but a worthwhile watch.
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