Side by Side: Kingsman and Jupiter Ascending

The spy movie “Kingsman” and the sci-fi “Jupiter Ascending” share more in common than being B-movies.

Sometimes the hate or love for a film just doesn’t make sense. In “Kingsman: The Secret Service” and “Jupiter Ascending,” you have two wildly creative films that both look like video games, are trashy fun, feature outlandish performances and stunning special effects, and yet one is considered genuinely good and the other is a cult film, but only because it’s so terrible.

I’ll flip that script and say I believe “Jupiter Ascending” to be a genuinely good movie. Everything about “Jupiter Ascending” is bananas, but the Wachowskis have made an endlessly inventive film that begs pouring over their imagination. Channing Tatum plays a hunter spliced with the DNA of a wolf, and he sports pointed ears, a scruffy blonde goatee and gliding rocket boots, but he fights and acts with the acrobatics of Magic Mike, employing his senses and a holo shield to evaporate pale nymph monsters. Eddie Redmayne gives the definition of a scene-chewing performance, but he seems to know what movie he’s in, curling his fingers in a lilting, vampiric performance. His voice raises octaves as he strives for range, and it never grows tiresome despite how it grows out of proportion. Even the human characters on Earth are colorful, cartoonish Russian greaseballs that make the film ever livelier. And they’re matched by the CGI spectacle of lush palaces and exotic gowns that put “The Hunger Games” to shame. At the same time, we’ll see Tatum flying in front of tacky green screen backdrops made to represent the Chicago skyline, and the film’s artificiality and B-movie charm shine through.

“Kingsman” has just as many quirks and goofy scenarios that extend far beyond the realm of believability, but Matthew Vaughn, as in “Kick-Ass,” has a tendency to confuse pure lunacy and anarchy for style, and gratuitous cartoon violence for humor. “Kingsman” doesn’t actually have sensational stunts. Rather, we see a delirious whooshing of the camera (accomplished digitally) rather than traditional action editing. It allows Vaughn to whip projectiles across the room or zoom in ultra close on various gadgets. One scene has Colin Firth knocking a tooth out of a thug’s mouth, and the tooth hangs in the air in slow motion before flying past another thug’s dumbstruck face. Another is the hyper-violent bloodbath that takes place as a result of Valentine’s mind control. Is there anything about this scene that’s funny other than it’s set to the tune of the “Freebird” guitar solo? And why exactly does Samuel L. Jackson talk with a lisp in this movie?

I still had fun with both of these films, but what’s interesting is how each film approaches class dynamics. It’s rare for movies this trashy to actually have credible substance about society, and yet the fact that they do goes a long way to elevating them beyond their frivolous fun.

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Britain of course concerns itself far more with class and upbringing than Americans do generally, so perhaps in Britain this isn’t so revolutionary. But across the pond, “Kingsman” raises some interesting questions. In the film, Eggsy (Taron Egerton) comes from a working class background. When he arrives at the Kingsman training facility, all the other selected candidates are pompous, posh and preppy. They ask whether he’s an Oxford or Cambridge boy, which to anyone in England, coming from “Oxbridge” is an obvious sign of class and snobbery. The film shows that becoming a “gentleman” has little to do with your roots and everything to do with your actions. The film’s set pieces have stakes because they’re as much tests of character as they are feats of strength.

As for Jupiter (Mila Kunis) in “Jupiter Ascending,” the Wachowskis make a point to say that Jupiter was born over the Atlantic, literally without a country and that she’s “technically,” an alien. She explains how astrology has been a guiding factor in her upbringing, and each morning she complains saying, “I hate my life,” as though had she been born under different circumstances, things wouldn’t be so bad. Of course, Jupiter will find that all the wealth and royalty in the world will not make her want to change her heritage and her life.

Both evil plots are also governed by class dynamics. Valentine’s plan is to create a “culling” on Earth, in which the population whittles itself down through mass murder, leaving only the wealthy elite (like Eggsy’s privileged classmate) to survive. The culling process in “Jupiter Ascending” is a bit more sci-fi. The royal families have claims to individual planets, owning them and harvesting their resources like farms in order to extend their lives, but it’s still a process that favors the rich and treats other human beings as second class citizens made to serve.

People have been pointing to the libertarian politics in something like “Captain America: Civil War,” and yet Marvel deliberately makes their films wishy-washy and bland, scrubbed of an explicit position. The Wachowskis and Vaughn may have appeared to make innocent, meat and potatoes action films, but they’re far more sophisticated. Rather, because these are films “of the people” that reject sophistication, let’s just say they have a lot more character.

The Hateful Eight

Quentin Tarantino’s 8th film is an overwritten slog.

HatefulEightPosterQuentin Tarantino, a truly favorite director of mine, can be called a lot of unsavory adjectives, but I never thought “boring” could be one of them.

“The Hateful Eight,” his eighth film as he proudly boasts, is an overwritten slog. At three hours and filmed in 70mm Panavision, Tarantino has the audacity to take those cinematic tools reserved for epics and apply them to a cozy, claustrophobic character drama set in a cabin in the woods. Tarantino bottles all his despicable characters and ideas about race and gender into a room and takes forever for them to explode, then even longer to clean up his mess.

The film involves bounty hunter John “Hangman” Ruth’s intentions to collect $10,000 reward by bringing in Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) alive, a principle of his to personally see all his victims hang. Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) is a former black officer in the Union Army and now full-time bounty hunter who still enjoys killing white boys who would rather see him dead. Warren hitches a ride with Ruth and former marauder, now Sherriff, Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins) to a haberdashery where they’ll wait out a blizzard.

This set up consumes the film’s first of three hours, a drawn out procession of formalities and mistrust in on the nose period dialogue. It’s theatrical play-acting, and Tarantino still confines all their conversation to the two walls of a cramped stagecoach. Tarantino leaves very little to subtext, with Warren, Ruth and Mannix each speaking detailed personal histories despite how much they seem to know about each other already. This is conversation for the audience, a way for Tarantino to show these allies are still at odds with one another, Mannix just a little racist and Ruth very much on edge. The mystery is Domergue, who spends the stagecoach ride with a black eye and a streak of blood down her cheek from Ruth’s blow to the head. She’s a monster, not a lady, we’re told. How much of her abuse can we endure? Tarantino is goading us, and the movie has barely started.

Waiting for them are four other travelers, each an Old West stereotype more likely drawn from cinema than from reality, as is Tarantino’s penchant. Tim Roth plays Oswaldo Mobray, complete with a thick and eloquent British accent that suggests Christoph Waltz could’ve been in mind for the part, as could’ve “Unforgiven’s” English Bob. Demian Bichir as the Mexican keeper of the haberdashery is Bob, easily a surrogate of Eli Wallach in “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.” Bruce Dern is a grizzled and apathetic Confederate General made enraged by Warren’s taunting. And Michael Madsen is the reserved, anonymous cowboy Joe Gage, just off to visit his mother. Of course Tarantino takes the time to have Ruth and Warren reintroduce themselves to all four individually.

No one can be trusted, and Ruth warns that one or some of the remaining four could be in cahoots with Domergue. But to what degree are we invested in seeing whether this woman gets to the rope or not? We have more doubt as to whether they are innocent rather than whether they are guilty. It’s just a matter of how long Tarantino takes to arrive there, and how much we choose to tolerate along the journey. His cards are all on the table.

Or maybe not. Tarantino back tracks in a clunky, narrated aside to fill in the gaps that we didn’t see, rather than allow those twists to emerge through character or dialogue. It’s too contrived to not be exactly as Tarantino intended. We’re made to realize that this genre setting, this overly theatrical dramatizing, this will they/won’t they scenario is in service of how much he can get away with and how hateful he can make his eighth film.

Violence here serves as an exclamation point and punch line rather than a consequence or for stylish entertainment value. The Ennio Morricone score is fascinating, operatic and lovely but staged over extended sequences of Ruth’s driver walking out into the cold to use the bathroom. The N-word rankled some feathers when Tarantino used it as coloring in “Django Unchained,” but here it seems notably superfluous. And there’s not much more to be said for measured storytelling nuance when your characters start projectile vomiting blood onto a woman’s face.

“The Hateful Eight” isn’t just hateful, it’s depressing and a drag. Tarantino has used his time to say everything despicable and nothing in particular.

1 star

Chi-Raq

Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq is an urgent statement on gun violence drawn from the Greek play Lysistrata.

ChiraqPosterNo movie this year is as bold-faced opinionated and timely of a political statement as Spike Lee’s “Chi-Raq.” That’s because movies are rarely this topical, this aggressive or this urgent. The film is littered with names of African Americans the media has been shouting for months, it has numerous hashtag ready catch phrases, it stops the film for a sermon that is essentially a vicious op-ed, and it declares up front that “This is an EMERGENCY” in giant, flashing red letters.

And yet Lee’s film, easily his best in over a decade, is captivating and harrowing because it is so entertaining. “Chi-Raq’s” message of peace and love lingers in the memory because it’s told in rhyming verse, because it has glamorous musical numbers and because the dialogue has more words for sex than you can count. The film’s humor, color and energy don’t make light of a bad situation; it helps make the movie sing and sting.

Lee draws his source material from the Ancient Greek play by Aristophanes “Lysistrata,” in which women of the Spartan warriors refuse sex for their husbands until they put an end to the war and bloodshed. In modern day Chicago, homicides from gang related violence have killed more since 9/11 than the casualties of Americans in Afghanistan or Iraq. Lee uses the South Side and two rival gangs, the Spartans and Trojans, as a backdrop for how the women of Chi-Raq stage a sex strike (“No Peace, No Pussy”, they declare) to end the killings.

But drawing from “Lysistrata” isn’t just a happy accident or a cute framing mechanism to introduce sex into the story. Women in this film become the catalyst for change, and Lee’s use of this play reframes the conversation on gun violence to include gender and sexuality. The film barks that people are dying everyday, “and you want to talk about how women behave?”

Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris) is the girlfriend to the rising rapper and Spartan gang-leader Chi-raq (Nick Cannon), and after a local mother (Jennifer Hudson) begins searching for the killer of her young daughter, Lysistrata stumbles across a successful sex strike in Africa and rallies Spartan and Trojan women to organize and do the same. She leads everyone in a pledge, and they use their sexuality as a weapon, but without killing anyone. In a hilarious and outrageous move they capture a local armory and both force peace talks and rally women around the country and world.

Lee’s politics are relevant on a national stage, but “Chi-Raq” is effective in part because it is localized to these Chicago neighborhoods. The film is highly specific and captures a stark reality that people familiar with watching WGN 9 news will be all too familiar with. Lee even gets inside the culture and color of both this Greek chorus and community. Lysistrata’s outfits alone are worth putting down your guns for, starting in a tight purple cami and ragged cut-off jean shorts before transforming into sexy camo fatigues to show that this really is war.

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Samuel L. Jackson is the film’s eloquent and well-versed narrator Dolmedes. His ass was on the first Wheaties box, as he puts it, and Lee sets the tone beautifully by opening the film by freeze-framing it. Dolmedes stands on a stage and halts the chanting crowd behind him in order to explain the film’s Greek tragedy origins and their intention to rhyme everything. One more stat about homicides is like white noise at this point, but when Lysistrata says the men in this city just live by the “bang-bang”, you remember it.

“Chi-Raq” has some incredible set pieces. In one a man wearing Confederate Flag underpants rides a big black cannon and figuratively makes love to his gun. And to end the film Lysistrata and Chi-Raq partake in a sexual showdown broadcast live. But the one that sums up the film best is a sermon given by one of the film’s few white characters, Father Mike Corridan (Chicago local John Cusack). Less a sermon and more a fiery op-ed and call to action, Father Corridan screams repeatedly that “You will not murder our children” and that what’s happening in this city is “self-inflicted genocide.” His words stop the film’s plot in its tracks and boldly assert all of Lee’s politics. It’s bloody, it’s messy, but damn if it’s emotional and devastating.

“Chi-Raq” is as rebellious and invigorating as Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” was in 1989, and as scarily relevant and poignant as “25th Hour” was in 2002’s Post 9/11 New York. But this time he’s taken root in my city, and this truly is an emergency.

4 stars

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is the most bullet-ridden superhero movie ever made, and it has a strange assortment of politics embedded within.

Captain America is a hero of morals and integrity. He represents the American ideal not because of his politics but because of his values. And yet his presence in comics dating back to World War II has always had to contend with the American political sphere. What would be the implications if the values of America’s greatest hero no longer matched America’s behavior?

Marvel took an ambitious step by removing Captain America from his ’40s origin story and dropping him into the modern day. “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is a film in which Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) must now grapple with thorny, ripped from the headlines debates surrounding America’s defense spending, use of military drones and their technological dominion over our privacy.

It’s the first time a Marvel film has presented grave, real-world stakes. In one way, the modern setting makes “The Winter Soldier” feel hardly like a superhero movie at all, closer to a conspiracy thriller complete with modern weaponry and combat. But in another way, Directors Anthony and Joe Russo’s placement of the film well within the Marvel template and “Cinematic Universe” make the presentation of “The Winter Soldier’s” vague political ideas that much queasier.

Continue reading “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”

Django Unchained

If “Inglourious Basterds” was really a Spaghetti Western in a World War II setting, then “Django Unchained” is really a Blaxploitation film in Spaghetti Western clothing. This could be frustrating in its own way, but it may be that “Django’s” intentional identity crisis is what makes it seem jumbled, messy, overlong and almost incomplete.

The ironic part is that this is true of every Quentin Tarantino film. He’s crafted an entire genre all his own in which the messy parts make the experience so damn fun. But Tarantino really was working up to the wire on “Django;” reshoots and last minute editing took place up until early December.

Yet to call “Django Unchained” incomplete makes it sound as though there’s something missing. That would be like having a German folk legend without a mountain; of course there’s one. What’s absent is the spark and allure that made “Inglourious Basterds” so infectious and invigorating.

Gone is the tingling suspense in the dialogue that suggested Hans Landa knew more than he was letting on or that ordering a glass of milk was a sign of an epic search years in the making.

Here in “Django,” the characters are more exciting and colorful than the story, and their dialogue is concerned with whether someone will snap at yet another instance of the N-word and ignite a “Wild Bunch” proportioned firefight. The details behind the motivations seem to be just a matter of circumstance.

Take The Brittle Brothers, a mysterious and vicious gang with a big bounty on their heads. Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a man gifted with his guns but more so with his words, wants to capture them badly, but he knows neither their whereabouts nor what they look like. Django (Jamie Foxx) however, does. Schultz goes through the trouble of freeing Django from a pair of slave owners and enlists his help, and the two dismantle the trio of brothers in no time. The brothers’ threat and their reason for being matters little.

The real story then is Django’s quest to reunite with his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). They discover through the uninteresting means of a logbook that she is the property of Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), the wealthy owner of the Candieland plantation. Candie is an avid lover of Mandingo fighting, in which black people brutally beat each other to death in front of adoring whites, and Django and Schultz’s plan is to impersonate wealthy buyers so that they can purchase Broomhilda out from under them.

Even Broomhilda is no one of consequence to anyone but Django. Broomhilda’s transaction could conceivably be handled civilly, but Schultz craves a good battle of wits, and Candie is a Southern Gentleman who just doesn’t want to be made a fool. Django is really just along for the ride.

That’s the problem with “Django Unchained;” in its current edited state, the plot too seems to be along for the ride. Tarantino squeezes juicy moments from the lot, such as Django’s garish blue outfit, some verbose wordplay by Waltz and a few gunfights scored to gangster rap, but they matter less than in the Westerns and Blaxploitation films they were inspired by.

Consider one of the film’s best scenes in which Candie places a skull of a black man on his dinner table in front of Schultz and Django. He eloquently preaches the pseudo-science of Phrenology to explain why black men are inferior to whites, wielding a hammer in a threat to bash some skulls both figuratively and literally. The moment is electric, but it’s a put on, isn’t it? It’s very convenient that Candie has a skull lying around, and he’s only doing it to be showy.

There’s also the moment where a posse of whites ride in brandishing torches and wearing pillow sheets to lynch Django. Just before their attack, one of several of the film’s spontaneous spectacles, he rewinds back to a hilarious routine in which everyone complains that they can’t see out of their sacks. Wouldn’t you say this scene almost intentionally interrupts the movie’s flow?

By the time Tarantino arrives at his exorbitantly bloody finale, he barrel rolls past it to remind you it’s not a Western but a Blaxploitation film, wedging in a torture scene, a director’s cameo and a new, less interesting villain. Something is definitely jumbled if the climax seems to have passed.

“Django Unchained” is like Candie’s belief in Phrenology. The science seems to all be there, and it’s captivating when you hear it, but there’s definitely something about it that feels wrong.

3 stars

Off the Red Carpet: Week of 11/7 – 11/14

We’re at the point where there’s going to be a big movie opening every week until the end of the year now, so get excited.

“Skyfall” has biggest Bond opening ever

“Skyfall” earned $86.7 million at the Box Office this weekend, sending it on its way to trounce even the inflation added record of the fourth Bond, “Thunderball.” It’s popular appeal as well as its just plain awesome quality has lead some to speculate the possibility of nominating Judi Dench, Javier Bardem and Roger Deakins for their respected Oscars, as well as a push for the movie itself for Best Picture. It’s a long shot, but I would be on board.

Best Animated Short shortlist revealed

Could we soon be saying, Oscar Winner Maggie Simpson? The shortlist for the Best Animated Short category was revealed last week, and it includes “The Simpsons” short “The Longest Daycare” and the lovey Disney short “Paperman.” The Pixar short film this year that screened before “Brave,” “La Luna,” was nominated and lost last year. But I can guarantee you now that the little underdog movie no one’s heard of and no one will see will almost definitely win this category. Here’s the full list: (via In Contention)

“Adam and Dog”

“Combustible”

“Dripped”

“The Eagleman Stag”

“The Fall of the House of Usher”

“Fresh Guacamole”

“Head over Heels”

“Maggie Simpson in ‘The Longest Daycare'”

“Paperman”

“Tram”

Christoph Waltz in Best Actor race

I said last week that for some reason people already want to count “Django Unchained” out of the race before anyone’s even seen it. Why no one would consider Christoph Waltz owning “Django” just like he did “Inglourious Basterds” is beyond me, but the difference this year is that he’s being pushed for the Lead Actor race now rather than supporting. Yes, it’s a crowded field, but he was just that good before, and I don’t see why he can’t be again. This also means that Leonardo DiCaprio and even Samuel L. Jackson are people to keep an eye on in the Supporting race. (via In Contention)

Image Credit: The Hollywood Reporter

The Hollywood Reporter Airs Annual Actor Roundtable

Each year The Hollywood Reporter puts together an extended interview roundtable with a collection of actors, usually Oscar hopefuls for that year. Last year they interviewed George Clooney, Viola Davis, Christopher Plummer, Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender, and this year they’ve interviewed Jamie Foxx, Matt Damon, Denzel Washington, Richard Gere, Alan Arkin and John Hawkes. All six are potential Oscar candidates for acting, three more likely than the others, but their discussion veered much more intellectual. They talked acting on stage, what they would do if they couldn’t act, family and whom they admired. It’s a stirring hour-long discussion between smart actors being very candid in a setting you won’t see anywhere else. (via The Hollywood Reporter)

Gurus ‘O Gold released

The Gurus ‘O Gold have been my go to barometer for Oscar predictions for the last few years. Collectively, they are probably better at anticipating the awards and forecasting changes than any one of them individually. This is their first time forecasting the major categories this year since Toronto. Things are bound to change as a few other movies set in and are seen by the public, but the universal consensus right now is unsurprisingly “Argo,” followed closely by TIFF winner “Silver Linings Playbook.” The surprise I see in the list is the inclusion of “Flight” in 10 spot and “Moonrise Kingdom” on the outs. 10 is probably a generous number for nominees anyway. Take a look at the full list if you’re like me and love charts and spreadsheets and stuff, and avoid it if you think it has the potential to suck all the fun out of the Oscars. (via Movie City News)

Will Best Picture match Screenplay?

A blogger at “Variety” observed that last year was a surprising anomaly in the trend for nominees for Best Picture and Best Original or Adapted Screenplay. The movie with the BP nod always gets the screenplay nod, with historically very few exceptions. Last year alone matched the last 10 years in terms of gaps between the two categories, and it’s worth noting that this year may go the same. “Moonrise Kingdom,” “The Master,” “Amour,” “Django Unchained,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and “The Sessions” are all questionable nominees for Best Picture, and that’s just listing the front runners in the screenplay races. (via Variety)

Ben Affleck to receive “Modern Master Award”

For a guy gunning for an Oscar for Best Director with a film set in the ‘70s, it’s got to feel good to win an award called the “Modern Master Award” at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Ben Affleck will receive the award on January 26, conveniently not long before the Oscar ceremony itself. (via The Race)

Week 5 Predictions Continue reading “Off the Red Carpet: Week of 11/7 – 11/14”

Do the Right Thing (1989)

Is “Do the Right Thing” a “black movie?”

Its director Spike Lee is an African American who has long made films about race and politics, is very outspoken about the lack of black actors and roles in Hollywood movies, closed this film with two quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and even made a biopic on the latter.

Hollywood knows how to market a movie like “Do the Right Thing” today, if it could even be made. And Lee has attained a label that colors (for lack of a better word) his films for better or worse.

But “Do the Right Thing” is non-partisan and unified in the way it depicts a whole melting pot of a community that doesn’t actually melt together, only simmers. Its blacks, Mexicans and Asians are no more admirable than the racist whites. Everyone shows hate and anger, but everyone has their problems and their reasons. No one party is strictly immune or antagonized.

The brilliance in Spike Lee’s film is that he led us to believe that this was a small-scale story about a misguided community, one he depicted with disappointment, but compassion, only to show chaos on a global scale. Like Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) blaring “Fight the Power” at all hours, Lee shouts his frustration with the country and the world. He doesn’t make a film about race but about how anger and hate begets more violence and destruction. And to really alert us to our hypocrisy, he does so with a film that is as aggressive and animated as society itself. Continue reading “Do the Right Thing (1989)”

The Avengers

“This intergalactic energy cube ain’t big enough for the six of us,” “The Avengers” says with a forceful tone as it struggles to conceal a smile.

Joss Whedon’s superhero movie equivalent to The Travelling Wilburys fully knows how impossible it is to squeeze all of these massive folklore figures into one film. So when the whole serious side starts to cave and just gets silly, Whedon is there with a zinger to run with the moment.

“The Avengers” is a fun and smart movie in doses, one that surprises and dazzles when it isn’t talking your head off. Continue reading “The Avengers”

Captain America: The First Avenger

“Captain America: The First Avenger” is campy fun with some neat ’40s nostalgia but gets bogged down by service to the franchise.

Don’t be mislead that “Captain America: The First Avenger” is a period piece war movie. It’s got a sepia tone and World War II era costumes, but the film is done up with as much CGI flair as any other superhero blockbuster. That said, this campy, Americana kicker that’s more sci-fi than old Hollywood is still a good time at the movies.

It goes to show that even if your character is just as goofy as a Norse God and if your film has nearly as many blatant product placement moments for yet another franchise a year in the future, a movie can still have quality if it feels like more than an advertisement.

Let’s leave all the Avengers mumbo jumbo aside. The real movie starts not with a crashed and frozen spaceship in modern day but with the vicious Nazi Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) stealing an ancient artifact that will do more for the war than the Ark of the Covenant did. Mutated with powers that make him believe he’s above God, he wants to separate from the Fuehrer and take over the world himself. The only person to stop him is a scrawny kid from Brooklyn, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans). No enlisting center will accept him given his size and medical problems, but he’s granted a special opportunity by a German scientist, Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci). Erskine will transform Steve into a hulking super soldier with the hope that he’ll maintain a good and strong heart. And thus Captain America is born. Continue reading “Captain America: The First Avenger”

Iron Man 2

If “Entourage” were a superhero movie, it would be this one. “Iron Man 2” loves knowing that it has a cocky, self-centered character everyone loves and an actor that is not only convincing at playing it but whom everyone loves even more. It hypes up the pretty boy lifestyle to the point of being silly and on the verge of absurdity.

If everyone loved the original “Iron Man” because the Tony Stark secret identity was not a cookie cutter hero, dweeb or lone wolf, then reasonably no one should be amused by Robert Downey Jr.’s now extreme version of a cookie cutter narcissist. But maybe like many episodes of “Entourage,” it’s hard not to be amused. I found it odd how little Stark was impressed by his own ability to discover and create a brand new element in the short time frame of one montage. I wondered why he didn’t blink at the thought of drinking coffee in a diner with an eye patch wearing Samuel L. Jackson as he sat in full Iron Man uniform. I can’t say any of it was out of character, and I can’t say it was an inappropriate direction in terms of entertainment value. Continue reading “Iron Man 2”