Unabashed

Iron Man told a great story, had plenty of plot, great acting, only a couple of moments of significant cheese…all the things that make a great movie. But, ultimately, I’ll remember it most for what it failed to do, for the dearth of Iron Man himself. It’s a problem a lot of movies have: how to tell the story, and still incorporate all the action the audience wants to see. I remember the first time I saw Beetlejuice, I thought the same thing: this could have been a good movie if there’d been more Beetlejuice. Same with the first Hulk movie. The list goes on and on of movies that were good–don’t get me wrong, I did like Iron Man–but didn’t quite quench the thirst for more. Maybe that’s the plan, to give audiences just enough to make them want more, to better guarantee the sequel and–the Holy Grail of Hollywood–the franchise. Iron Man will undoubtedly become a franchise. There’s way too much potential here for there not to be, and I believe everyone will love it. I did, I just wish there’d been more Iron Man in Iron Man. 

This, I hope, won’t be a problem in Iron Man Two. All the setup is done now, and the movie can start with ol’ Iron Head patrolling the skies above Stark Industries. Who’ll be the bad guy in the sequel? Who knows. Iron Man doesn’t have a very good rogues gallery. His arch enemy was Mandarin, which could be very cool if done well.

Here’s another little problem with the movie: They gave too much away in teasers. You can barely go through five minutes of film time before you see another moment you’ve already seen in the various teaser trailers on YouTube. The entire first fifteen minutes of the movie is summed up in teaser trailers. There is nothing new to learn by watching the movie. I think they could have sold the movie just fine with the one scene of Iron Man falling from the sky into a crater, and then ascending, menacingly, to fire repulsors at bad guys. End. Follow the Cloverfield example; simplicity really can work very well when done right.

Overall there were maybe five or six repulsor blasts in the entire movie. This is a problem. They added a very cool little pulsing sound effect to the repulsor blasts, but then barely used them the entire movie. Oh, and when it came time to fight the bad guy at the end…well, some things are best left unsaid, right?

Overall it was a great movie. My only gripe is very simple: I wanted a movie my 3-year old would sit through (once the DVD comes out). Unfortunately, there are only about ten total minutes of this film that my son will care about seeing. And those were my favorite moments, too. I wish the entire movie had been like those ten minutes. Will I watch it again? Will I buy the DVD? Hell yes. In BlueRay. Because those ten minutes I was just talking about? They freaking rock. And the rest ain’t bad at all.

Where does Iron Man fit into the pantheon of super hero movies? I’m still working on that list; in the meantime, go check out Iron Man, just don’t take your three-year old.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Comics, hero, Invincible, Iron Man, marvel, movie, super

I don’t do many of these, but the folks at GUD were kind enough to send me an advance copy of their first second (they started at #0–whoops) issue to review. I printed it off and set about reading it with a very critical mindset, to be critical in the very definition of the word. But it’s hard to be overly critical with something you love, and I find myself loving this magazine.

The entire magazine is entirely readable, for starters, which is an accomplishment in itself. There’s not a single throw-away story from the first page to the pleasing end, and it’s packed with stories which I feel can appeal to every reader, whether they prefer speculative fiction in its many brands or mainstream contemporary literature or even slice-of-life non-fiction. It’s rare for a magazine to be put together so well, to be attractive and enjoyable from start to finish, but that’s exactly how I found GUD. I’m a subscriber to a few magazines currently, and I read a good many more than I subscribe to, and I can’t think of another single issue of any magazine that didn’t have at least one story that I didn’t like. Not so with GUD. It’s 200+ pages of fantastic fiction, some humorous and some dark, a bit of scifi, a touch of fantasy, a spackling of horror, poetry and art and tons of great reading.

And the writing? Well, from my point of view it’s exceptional. It’s a veritable how-to document for a new writer trying to come to grips with the “show don’t tell” mantra that’s so often repeated in critiquing circles. And, even better, it’s edited to near perfection. There’s not much to dislike in this magazine in which, when trying to put together a list of my favorite stories from it, every single title leaps off the page and begs to be included, and they are all worthy.

But of course, I set out to be critical and here’s the only God’s-honest critique I can come up with: They’ve set the bar too high. This may be the best single issue of a magazine I’ve ever read. If they keep this up, I’ll be a subscriber forever. And I should add that I’m not being paid to say this: this is my honest opinion. Regardless of how the magazine progresses from here, they’ve put together a work of art with this first issue that I’ll no doubt be reading again and again. It’s rare that I’ll put a magazine on my bookshelves, much less keep one for any length of time in anything other than a box in the attic, but this one is special. This one’s a keeper.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: GUD