The Ramblings of Guise Dugal

Rich Hall pointed out on television this one time how, despite his vast wealth, you never really see Bill Gates smile. See, billionaires who are happy and jovial are nearly always publicity hungry and constantly one with the crowd, Bill Gates is a grumpy sod because of a secret. Deep inside he’s had either childhood trauma, some freak accident or some underlying health condition. These have led him to focus his life on protecting others, using the technology he developed in secret that piggy-backs his business products, but never comercially released.

Either that or Bill Gates is just a miserable, antisocial, mop-haired man who doesn’t smile because those muscles died from extreme overuse the first time he saw his bank balance.

I saw Iron Man today, by the way.

No, actually the shirt is lightish-red. At least a very masculine and fertile salmon

It was the advanced screening all day at the local cinema, so Tim and I decided to hit the first showing at 11am. That was a really good call, because we got kick-ass seats (centre stage, but several rows elevated) that gave us a great view without any aching, and there were very few people there.

The film was freaking awesome for a superhero movie, and definately ranks as one of the better Marvel movies. Granted there were a lot of plot points that seemed to be lifted from Batman Begins, though understandably because both series have featured a lot of the same story types in their years. Don’t go in expecting a unique story, but go in anticipating a compelling one.

The movie was a great blend of action-adventure and moments of very good comedy, that actually got quite audible laughs from all around. The references to other factors of the Iron Man franchise or Marvel universe appeared fluidly, not shoe-horned in as a deliberate fanboy nod.

At the trailers beforehand, I was unconvinced about watching Robert Downey Jnr as Tony Stark, but the performance was top notch and captured the different stages that Stark had been through very convincngly and with great flair.

In fact, the casting was exceptionally good all around. I have never really been a solid Iron Man fan, I’ve caught the different cartoons and picked up a few comic books and crossovers, so I think that the basic foundation for an outsider to the series was very good. Granted, somewhere there may be voices of dissent from long term fans of the series, especially with the leaning more towards the style of The Ultimates, but as a jump-on point the characters work well. Hell, even the robotics and computers are exceptional characters.

The CG was very nicely done, great depths of texture and smoothness, and mixing in minor defects to the suits, as well as some of my favourite CG work on holograms and HUDs. As a whole visual effects were outstanding and gave a rush of excitement while also still managing to convince that it was somehow realistic. The level of detail given to the suit and, in a brilliantly put together piece, the process of donning the suit - from timed operations to move pieces in to place to the tightening and binding of parts - which although is a relatively small part, goes to show that a depth of thought has gone in to it.

Something that works in the movies favour is that there didn’t seem to be any slow grind or wasted time in the movie, which considering that it is just over two hours is a very convincing arguement for it’s storytelling value. This film is definately worth the ticket price.

One thing, stay until after the credits. I was out of the door but able to see, so I saw the scene but missed the dialogue. Fury, brief cameo, excellent choice.