Movie Reviews: Iron Man and Speed Racer

Yes, nothing like stale movie reviews to spice up your day!

Iron Man

It didn’t really hit me until a week after I had seen it. Iron Man kills people. Superman, Batman, Spiderman; they don’t kill people. Sure, a villain might die by ignoring the sincere advice of these superheroes and not shutting down the fusion reactor or continuing to fight on top of a giant cathedral, but these deaths are their own fault. They weren’t deliberately killed by the heroes.

Iron Man will have none of this. He shoots people. With all manner of weaponry. In the head.

Anyway, Iron Man was great. A solid origin story that was extremely well acted by Robert Downey, Jr. The suit was brilliantly conceived. The script was funny and smart. I’m looking forward to the next one.

I only have three criticisms. One is expressed by Matthew Baldwin of The Defective Yeti and shall be known as the “Villain has the same powers as the Hero” problem. One of the offshoots of this problem is that these types of villains often have no minions and the final battles tend to be perfunctory. I thought the final battle in Iron Man was a bit perfunctory.

The second criticism is Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane. He’s very good in the role, but with the bald head and beard, he looked a little too much like Richard Moll (a mix of his present appearance and his Night Court look) for my tastes.


Obadiah Stane or Moll?? Who can tell?

Finally, (mild spoilers ahead), there’s a point in the story when Tony Stark returns to Stark Industries and announces that they will no longer be selling weapons. They will instead be selling hockey-puck size “Arc” reactors that need no apparent fuel input and produce incredible amounts of power.

Of course, the corporate bigwigs go nuts about this. Not sell weapons? That’s insane! We could never make any money selling hockey-puck sized reactors which could fuel everything in the world, from home appliances to automobiles to superhero suits of incredible complexity, thus immediately ending everyone’s dependence on foreign oil. Where’s the money in that? Besides, they are impossible to manufacture! Even though Tony Stark built one out of SCRAP PARTS. IN A FRACKING CAVE. IN AFGHANISTAN.

Why are corporate bigwigs in movies so incredibly stupid?


Speed Racer

If you liked the cartoon Speed Racer, go see this movie. If you like trippy, psychedelic visions, go see this movie. I like both, so I liked Speed Racer.

It’s amazing how well they translated all the elements of Speed Racer into a movie that actually works. The family really looked and acted like the Racer family. Even so, about a third of the way in, I was a little worried. There was a lot of exposition to get out of the way and things didn’t quite click. Then Speed and Racer X (who is secretly Speed’s older brother, Rex Racer, supposedly killed in a car crash years before) team up for the Ultra-deadly Casa Cristo Road Rally and the movie hit its stride, complete with an insane race course through deserts, mountains and ice caves, filled with car acrobatics that could only take place on film.

Matthew Fox as Racer X (who is secretly Speed’s older brother, Rex Racer, supposedly killed in a car crash years before) was really good. As for the rest of the family, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon and Christina Ricci were all perfectly cast.

There was one MAJOR plot hole involving the construction of a new car that went completely unexplained and seems to suggest a missing scene. But no one in my group noticed it until I pointed it out later.