I would complain that Robert Downey Jr. plays all of his roles in exactly the same fashion, but he does it so damned well. I’d say he was the best thing about Zodiac, but everyone in that movie played their parts well, they just couldn’t make them interesting.
Keeping in mind Downey Jr.’s quality (quite different to Faramir’s quality), I am pleased to see that the first Iron Man trailer is online. If you listen very carefully, it’s impossible to miss … that song.
I like the idea of Iron Man’s origin story: that, rather than creating a super weapon for a terrorist cell, he turns himself into a super weapon and beats up the terrorist cell. Now I understand that Iron Man has, in recent comics, turned into a kind of one man hero registry, ready to round up everyone and tell them what for. The film series (and, who knows, it might be a Hulk level disaster, although I think it takes a lot of effort to make a movie that incoherent) is not yet at that point. We don’t even see Samuel L. Jackson storming onto the scene as Nick Fury. But I’m excited, and I have virtually no knowledge of this franchise at all.
Strangely enough, it’s almost impossible to tell that this is a Marvel movie. Obviously they’ve got the title at the beginning, but it doesn’t have any of the “importance” of Spider-Man or the “high budget masquerading as low budget fake whimsy” of Fantastic Four behind it.
I’m quite looking forward to Iron Man now, and it gets extra bonus points for being directed by Jon Favreau, who was smote down by the mighty fists of karma wielded by Jason Lee. There’s hope for this world yet, my friends.
