Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Iron Man ::
by William the Bloody
Tony Stark makes weapons. Not just any weapons either, the very best weapons available. They're so good, he makes them for the United States government, and he has just unveiled his latest prototype to them: the Jericho. The Jericho is so efficient, Stark touts that "you'll only have to use it once." The demonstration in the Middle Eastern desert goes horribly wrong when the caravan transporting Stark gets hijacked by extremists, who kidnap him. They hold a gun to his head and tell him to build them his impressive Jericho missile and they show him their vast stockpile of Stark Industries weapons for him to use for parts to do so. Stark is horrified that these terrorists have his weapons, which he invented to keep United States soldiers safe and are being used for just the opposite. He starts construction under the watchful eye of his captors, only it isn't exactly the missile they requested. He builds a crude suit of armor with a weapons arsenal in order to facilitate his escape. And escape he does, blowing up the extremist's cache of Stark weapons and using short distance rockets in his boots to catapult himself a safe distance, where he is rescued by United States search helicopters. Once back in the good ol' US of A, Stark holds a press conference where he announces Stark Industries will no longer manufacture weapons, much to the shock of everyone, especially the board of directors. Upon the request of one board member, Obadiah Stane who was a close friend of Stark's father the founder of the company, Stark avoids the public eye until Stane can smooth over things with the shareholders and the directors concerning Stark's "new direction proposal" with the company. While spending so much time at home, Stark starts to work on refining his primitive iron suit he used to escape his imprisonment in secret. After Stark personally "test drives" his new suit out the open, the secret is out and many people in the know put two and two together that the mysterious armor clad figure was designed by Stark, particularly certain extremists who saw the original prototype in action. These people know that this suit is the new generation of warfare and will stop at nothing to get this fantastic new technology.
The Good: Where to start? Oh, I know, how about the absolutely brilliant casting of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man? Seriously, they could not have picked anyone better. He was absolutely spot on as the classic booze drinkin', womanizing, kind of a pompous jerk but good guy deep down Tony Stark. The supporting cast was terrific as well, Gwyneth Paltrow as Tony's lovely assistant Pepper Potts, Terrence Howard as Rhodes, et al. were all not only wonderfully cast, but played the parts superbly as well. Many people come to expect a certain amount of hammy acting in comic book film adaptations, but I'm happy to say we don't that here. There's no Willem Dafoe types oozing villany out their pores in this flick. Also, the special effects for the Iron Man armor were brilliant. Sometimes with CGI and/or puppetry, you get stuff which looks out of place or off just a tad, like some of the Spider-Man webslinging bits, but here it all looked so good. The creation of the armor in the story also felt good and looked so much like a natural progression you could almost buy it as real. There is a dash of physical humour thrown in, which normally I hate, but they made it feel seamless and it kept perfectly with the overall feel of this film. There were some really great nod and winks to the comic book readers which also didn't feel out of place one bit (well maybe Stan "the man" Lee's obligatory appearance, but come on, hilarious). Like "Jarvis" the name given to Tony Stark's security system/robot butler (re: the Avenger's human butler in the comics), the fact that the extremists are part of a sect known as "the Order of the Ten Rings" (Iron Man's arch enemy utilizes ten rings of power in the books), Rhodes' sidelong look at a second armor suit claiming "next time" (Rhodes wore a silver version of the suit in the comics under the moniker War Machine), a background sign "Roxxon Industries" (a corporation in the Marvel Universe), and others were all well portrayed and felt right at home. For an origin story, I felt it worked really well and came off very natural and not at all forced or rushed. And the stinger after the end credits was dead brilliant. Pure icing on the cake, but I'm sure every fan boy the world over squealed like it was X-mas.
The Bad: Hold on, I have to really think about this one. I kind of feel like the whole "terrorist" bad guy thing is being over done these days. You know, like "the Russians" in the 1980s and such. They're the new catch all bad guy department. Um. Is that it? I think that's it. Wow.
Overall, I do believe this is the best superhero comic book movie of recent years. Good plot, believable origin story, terrific effects, spot on casting and just about perfect acting make Iron Man a can't miss movie!
A+
