Iron Man

Brian Sanderson Blog entry Posted on 05.17.08


I finally saw Iron Man the other day. I know, I'm a little slow to the party, but I did want to get to it eventually. I love a good superhero story, which is odd, since comics never managed to grab hold of me as a kid. My guess is that I like the archetypes they deal with, but don't necessarily like the comic book format. They tend to be very large offenders in the "This will never end" department. At least with a book series, the novels form pre-defined breaks. And even a very long series like the Wheel of Time or the like has an ending out there somewhere. All you have to do is convince me that there WILL be an ending, and I'm willing to read. Most comics convince me of the opposite.

Regardless, the movie was great. Not fantastic great--I disagree that it's the best superhero movie ever, as I'm very partial to the first two Spider-man movies, the original Superman, and the Adam West Batman movie. (Okay, maybe that last one is a bit of a joke--but honestly, both Batman Begins and the original Burton Batman movie rank very high on my list. And I do have a silly fondness for the Adam West one, plastic sharks and all.) Against those, Iron Man didn't quite hold up--but that doesn't mean it's not a great movie. Thoroughly enjoyable, excellently acted, and not TOO badly offensive in the plot department. (Though, the ending bugged me just a little.)

To be honest--and I feel a little guilty for this--I liked Forbidden Kingdom better. Yes, it was campy. But man was it fun to watch Jacky Chan and Jet Lee act in the same movie. Another one that isn't super amazingly fantastic, but was just a good movie.

I'm scared to go see Speed Racer. I was really hoping that it would be good, and the reviews have me paranoid. Maybe if I go with low expectations. (That didn't help with Fantastic Four, though....)

As for the signing, thanks to everyone who showed up at the library today. Wheel of Time progressed well this week, and I'm right around the 70k mark, which earns us another point on the percentage bar.