I have problems with film critics at the best of times - the practice of film criticism has, in my lifetime, gone from being a true dissection of films in an attempt to actually critically analyze them - breaking down the components to discover why they do or do not work and why they might or might not be art, important, dreck, fun, whatever - into this new, diluted thing where we thumbs up or down like bloated late-model Romans, either trashing or approving based on ultimately flawed criteria. And, of course, doing it in 30 seconds or less, so that the mindless sheep who actually read movie reviews for direction can be spared the task of making their own decisions as to what to watch. It's a ridiculous practice, and movie critics are one of those useless groups in our society that we should quickly cull, like former American Idol winners, Realtors, guys who sell spinning rims, teen magazine editors, evangelicals, and lobbyists.
There are some who assert that Hollywood no longer produces movies worthy of intellectual critical review, and so why bother? I call this horseshit. First off, abdicating your responsibilities just because someone else does is cowardly and irresponsible, and secondly, there are good, meaty movies being made - they just don't get the hype. Finally, just because it's candy doesn't mean it's not worthy of an accurate description, and even having some thought put into it's analysis. People like fluff - they just shouldn't eat it all the time.
This review, by critic Kenneth Turan, annoyed the crap out of me yesterday morning, not because he disagrees with me about Iron Man's merit; I expect a legion to do that. I am a fanboy - I will feel more passionately about the filmic debut of the Golden Avenger than fully 90% of the population. That's a given. No, this review - and Mr. Turan - get the sharp end of my habanero-dipped stick and a facial bockwursting because it's ignorant, stupid and lazy. To paraphrase the late, great Mr. Garfinkel, "Honey, I could shit a better review."
Turan starts with an elitist, holier-than-thou attitude present in a lot of reviewers who seem to think that anything coming from a comic book is slightly beneath them. As if the intellectual plateaus of television, movies, or popular fiction are great zeniths by comparison. Apparently, he'd like the character's name changed, on the grounds that it's a bit dated for a tech-advanced world. This reveals a major lack of perspective. Arguing that the name "Iron Man" is dumb just proves you haven't heard it very much. Think hard about "Superman," "Batman," "Hulk," or "Wolverine" for a couple of minutes. If you hadn't heard them fifty thousand times, they'd sound odd. Finally, to really tart up his ignorance for display, one of his suggestions for a replacement name is "Titanium Man," another Marvel comics character, and an Iron Man villain. Look at the minimum effort required to discover that on the web. I think it's safe to say that Mr. Turan would be baffled a comic book, would find it an arcane and profoundly confusing item, hurling it from him and shouting, "unclean, unclean!"
Turan then goes on to evoke the other recent Marvel movies, which with varying quality levels between them, serves only to fill a paragraph of his review, getting him closer to fulfilling his word quota, and doing nothing to help the victim forced to absorb his turgid review. He follows this by saying mostly positive things about the movie, making fun of Gwyneth Paltrow's character's nickname - a fact of which he is frostily ignorant - and then lays the blame for what he sees as the narrative failure of this film at the door of "Column A, Column B" screenwriting, and "too many Tony Starks." To back up this latter point, he says:
"There are simply too many Tony Starks. Besides the glib playboy, there's the dour captive of jihadists, the obsessed inventor, the angry Human Rights Watch monitor on steroids, the unbeatable superhero."
I know that Turan expects Stark to be a simple, one-dimension, four-color processed guy, since he came from that most flimsy of children's reading material sources, the dreaded comic book, but this, to me, describes a complex person of a character, a character with dimensions, an arc, someone who does not fit a preconceived notion of what a superhero is supposed to be. He doesn't put on his glasses when he goes out and nobody recognizes him - he has a life changing experience and tries to undo some of the bad shit, often with bad results - just like an actual person might do, Kenny. More specifically: "unbeatable" is an exaggeration if you've seen the movie, and the inventor/playboy stuff is all pretty well covered, motivation-wise and otherwise. My favorite is "dour captive of jihadists," as if there's some glaring, inherent contradiction there. You're in a freezing cave, with a life-threatening injury, and you're being held at gunpoint by crazed religious madmen who don't speak English. This might - just might - make anyone a little dour. I'm just sayin'.
I think putting a price on Ken's head (as I have done for Pat Robertson) for his inane little review is a bit harsh, but I would like to offer here on the Squidbag, for the first time, DEATH TICKETS. I'm thinking a little pink ticket, festooned by a skull with a couple of arrows through it, and you get one for say, knocking Kenneth down a flight of stairs, or keying his car. Maybe giving him day-old soup. Not really kill the guy - though he should be ashamed of his livelihood - just fuck him up for a while. I would have called them GREVIOUS INJURY TICKETS, but the title lacks oomph, and the graphic design would have been a nightmare.