Blessed by the Potato

The summer blockbuster movie season has started, and started off well with IronMan. Note that Netbug’s site is down for the moment, so it falls to me to sing its praises. In particular, I really enjoyed the steampunky goodness of the “mark 1” IronMan suit made in the cave. Plus, the camera/CG work seemed to have been done with somewhat of a stable mentality: at no point in watching it did I feel the need to turn my head and puke from motion sickness. The tone was light throughout, and pretty much all the humour worked, even the little throw away bits (“this is the FUN-VEE”). Yes, there were plot holes you could drive a mech through (why, once you returned to civilization, would you decide to put a better power generator in your chest instead of, say, removing the shrapnel?), but it’s a super hero movie, and aside from that plot-central one, the fight (more after the spoiler warning) and Miss Pot’s ridiculous shoes, none of them bugged me while I was watching.

Spoiler warning

So during the final fight with the bigger, cooler, better-armed mech/power armor, there were a few things that got to me. First off, this suit was supposed to be tougher, but not as technologically advanced: it didn’t look to have that repulsor technology, but instead had some sort of rocket-based jumpjet in the feet. In that case, it shouldn’t have been able to get to those kind of stratospheric heights in the first place… but then when it did come crashing back down to earth, I didn’t catch it re-light its boosters to help with the fall. It should have smashed up there and that been the end of it. That wouldn’t have made for as big of a drawn-out fight scene though, so I suppose I’ll let it slide.

The ending should make any sequels interesting, as it does away with all that secret-identity stuff.