1. Iron Man 2 Looks Ready to Dominate.
This weekend is going to be a strange one for movie fans. On one hand, Iron Man 2 is clearly better than the first, devoid of the massive problems the original had near the ending. But certain fans aren’t going to like it as much. Why not? Because it’s not an origin story anymore, it’s all grown up. It doesn’t have a silly Jeff Bridges saying “Bwahahahaha!” as Pepper Potts scurries around in high heels. It does have a legitimate villain in Mickey Rourke, a bad guy who truly has a reason to hate Tony Stark. Which makes it solid for the average fan, but less so for the diehards.
As for the box-office prospects, I can’t see it breaking The Dark Knight‘s opening weekend record. $150 million might be doable, but I draw the line at $155 million. It also won’t do as well critically, as the original’s lofty 93 percent on RottenTomatoes is a stretch, everyone afraid to take a shot at a monster film. Iron Man was a good film, but not a great one. As for Iron Man 2, it’s an even better film, but still not a great one. Looks like they’re going to have to Avengers us to take this story home. Joss, your table is ready.
2. Matthew Vaughn Saves the Day?
From the moment I first heard about X-Men: First Class I thought, “Well, that’s going to be a disaster. Pity the poor soul who takes that on.” But no longer! Matthew Vaughn, he of Kick-Ass, Layer Cake, and Stardust has signed on to direct the film. And he wouldn’t have done so without a decent script in place, this I know, because he’s a smart fellow.
The worst case scenario for First Class was Saved by the Bell meets Sky High. Now we can shift to a best case scenario, a solid story about Professor X and Magneto’s early years. Some of the best scenes from X-Men involved Magneto’s distress over the concentration camps, so this film could have potential. Let’s just hope they play a game of chess or two!
3. J.J. Abrams Gets Very Sneaky.
Does anyone else find it amazing that J.J. Abrams, fresh off of Star Trek, could be working on a project for months that no one knew about? Evidently the film is called Super 8, takes place in the late ’70s, and is a sort of homage to Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Spielberg is also producing the film, written and directed by Abrams. They somehow got the trailer in front of Iron Man 2 while the world slept. Bravo, fellas. Well played. You can’t go out to eat in Hollywood without getting photographed, yet you’ve got a film in the can without anyone knowing about the script or the talent involved. I salute your sneakiness! We need more guys out there just doing work, without all the media saturation diluting the end impact.
4. Someone, Somewhere, Has Seen Inception.
There is one giant mystery to this summer, and that’s Christopher Nolan’s Inception. His Dark Knight and Batman Begins work is widely appreciated, but his non-superhero efforts such as The Prestige and Insomnia weren’t massive box office draws. So is this the film Christopher Nolan crosses over from “Batman” guy to “director you support no matter the topic?” There’s an argument to be made on both sides of that equation.
On the negative side, how’s the recent history of “smart” films gone? Not great, right? I mean, we pretty much live in a Squeakquel, G.I. Joe, and Transformers world now. It’s depressing, but adult films that also make huge profit have ceased to be. Avatar, while featuring world-beating CGI, didn’t break any new thematic ground. Attempting anything that’s new or fresh within the narrative is frowned upon by the guys who write the checks.
On the positive side, Nolan has a chance to change all that. He’s the one director who could right the ship, but it’s got to happen with Inception. Now that people have seen the finished product, and were blown away by it, I’m going to allow myself to be cautiously optimistic. You should too. As I wrote in this space before, Inception looks delightfully crazy. If delightfully crazy becomes profitable again, it’s going to be a much more interesting world to live in.
On that note, I hope you all have a great weekend, full of Tony Stark shenanigans.
Check out last week’s Movie Musings here
Laremy is the lead critic and senior producer for a website named Film.com. He’s also available on Twitter.
