dangermousie | Iron Man: I loved it!!!!!

Just got back from Iron Man.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

So good.

And not just because it hits so many of my fictional kinks dead on: an unacknowledged mutual OTP, a heck of a lot of hurt (though not an equal amount of comfort :( Man...), a messed-up/charming hero etc etc etc.

This is now my second favorite Superhero movie (behind Batman Begins) which considering the fact that all I knew about Iron Man before going in was 'Dude fights in an iron suit' is pretty impressive.

So, behind the cut are spoilery thoughts...

Oh, you guys, you guys!!!! So wonderful. I basically loved everything about it, from the final fight which made me think of mecha anime, to the fact that they presented Tony Stark as this sort of artist/tinkerer (the guy certainly had artistic temperament and tastes :D).

Like the other superhero movies I really love, this one casts an actor,a real actor, not someone you'd think will be in a superhero movie as a lead. (I mean, Christian Bale? Tobey Maguire? Robert Downey Jr? Not the guys you'd think would star in a superhero movie, but they make their movies work because their acting plus the script never lets us forget that it's a person inside the armor or mask or whatnot).

So yeah, I have a bit of a crush on Tony Stark. I love that Robert Downey Jr. really portrays someone who is both messed-up and someone who finds a meaning in life and a purpose, with all this vulnerability, but also am enfant terrible and someone who really enjoys life, with its attendant booze and floozies. Most superheroes are so ground down by their trauma/duality/etc they are messes but whether Stark is a mess or not, he enjoys life. I mean, even Batman with his playboy facade, you get the sense his mental process goes something like 'I have to be with floozies. My life is woe.' Not Stark :)

But with all his impatience and arrogance, they really make him human, don't they? He is someone who genuinely believed his weapons were making the world safer (he clearly let the everyday running of the company to Obadiah). Even at the end, he doesn't become a hippie, but is basically doing what he thought he was doing in the first place, in the beginning: using a weapon to make the world safer. Only because he got to grow up, he is being responsible and thorough about it.

Of course, they also humanize him through his permanent injury and also all that torture. OMG. I don't think I've seen this much torture and hurt in a superhero movie before (or most other movies, for that matter). My God. And, it's rather short on comfort, isn't it?

Also, probably the first time I've liked Gwyneth Paltrow in years. But Pepper is a total darling. And oh how I loved the unspoken thing with Stark. I was worried they were going to make it more 'spoken' by the end, but they didn't, they did the perfect balance of things, with his babble about superhero's girlfriends and the eye-frelling. But they always pull back, don't they? Like the almost kiss at the party. SQUEEEEEE. Oh, I love when they do that sort of relationship because they almost never do (see The Legend for another version I love).

I also love how they show Stark design the suit and treat all those mechancial things almost like weird pets.

In conclusion, I want a sequel!

Oh, and the trailers were actually awesome. I might actually be interested in Prince Caspian, which is a surprise, because I didn't like the first Narnia movie. And the trailer for the Hulk movie with Edward Norton looks eighteen kinds of wonderful (yet another example of artsy actor playing a superhero), and best of all, we also had the trailer of Batman Returns and it was SO FRELLING INCREDIBLE MUST SEE IT NOW NOW NOW NOW.

I really should do a list of my Top 10 superhero movies...