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Sequels, Trailers and Other Issues
Monday, 24 May 2010 21:57Last Night
I finally got around to posting my review of Iron Man 2. Even as I was wrapping it up, I realized that my notes included a couple of things, and then some things came up in comments, that I should probably mention. So...
I forgot to mention that both Iron Man and Iron Man 2 need to be included in my list of movies which have Dr. Phil Specials -- some kind of extra scene or bonus that is included in or after the credits. I suppose if I'd ever actually posted my review of Iron Man two years ago, I wouldn't have forgotten. In the first movie, the extra bit involves Tony Stark being asked to use his Iron Man suit against The Hulk, i.e. fugitive David Banner. In the new movie -- well hell, go see the movie and sit through the credits. I did. (grin)
Also, my theory of sequels suggests that most sequels have the problem that they can't have or recapture the innocence lost in the original. I suspect that one of the reasons that Iron Man 2 works so well is that (a) Iron Man isn't all that innocent, because Tony Stark isn't an innocent. Indeed, he builds his first suit as an act of defiance, and then upset at how he saw his company's products being used by the wrong people for bad deeds, he gets home and works to perfect the suit. Or at least make it work more better. (grin) (b) For all his arrogance and the missteps said arrogance engender, Tony Stark has a couple of serious problems in Iron Man 2 that he must again Must Solve Or Die, thus recapturing at least some of the residual innocence of the original. So good on them.
Trailers: Of course sitting in Row 2 centered seats in front of the humongous IMAX screen before Iron Man 2 started, we were going to get trailers optimized for IMAX content -- go figure. (obvious grin) So these are not necessarily the trailers showing in the regular cinema theatres just a few hundred feet away. First up, two involving Leonardo DiCaprio. Now I make fun of Leo, but the fact is that he really can act -- Titanic might not be his finest, but Catch Me If You Can is brilliant and he was smoldering in Gangs of New York and exciting/heading into dementia as Howard Hughes in The Aviator. We skipped Shutter Island, but this new movie Inception, with its strange fantastic dream imagery, looks to be the best dream world visualization since Robin Williams' What Dreams May Come. Then again Leo is the narrator for the Hubble 3D IMAX film about the final repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Now the Space Station 3D IMAX film was, at the time, the closest thing I figured I'd ever see to actually going into space myself. I can only hope that the Hubble repair mission is equally enthralling.
Given the success of the first two, why am I not surprised that the third Twilight movie will be released in an IMAX format?
Then there's the IMAX 3D animated movies Shrek 4 and -- the big one -- Toy Story 3. Now Toy Story 1&2 are much loved stories. One hopes that they can recapture the magic One More Time and avoid the dreaded Third Film Sequel Decline. And then there's the modern/retro/homage IMAX 3D Tron Legacy, due on 17 December 2010, I believe it is. This trailer provides a backstory link to the original Tron and only a glimpse to the inside world of wonders. Tron wasn't a great film originally, but its graphics were clean and sharp and looked good on the big screen -- the lightcycles alone with their razor edged turns were amazing. I am really hoping that Tron Legacy is good.
Really? REALLY?
Late Sunday night I ran into this movie on the so-called SyFy Channel, which I eventually discovered was called Mutant Chronicles. After watching parts of it, while flipping back and forth with other shows, I looked it up on Wikipedia -- a great source for figuring out plots of TV shows and movies that you either don't want to watch, have only seen part of, or can't figure out what the hell was going on -- and found it was based on a video game series. Oh, well that explains why it wasn't coherent. Still, where I came in had a steampunk space capsule and Ron Perlman and despite the really bad landing, that was enough for me to see bits of it. Sorry, but most movies spawned from video games have real problems. The battle scenes against the mutants would probably be better behind a game controller than as a passive movie watch. Just saying. Somehow I missed this one when it had what sounded like limited U.S. theatre release -- and I'm not sad that I did. (evil grin)
And now I'm a little bit more caught up with posting that I was last night.
Dr. Phil
I finally got around to posting my review of Iron Man 2. Even as I was wrapping it up, I realized that my notes included a couple of things, and then some things came up in comments, that I should probably mention. So...
I forgot to mention that both Iron Man and Iron Man 2 need to be included in my list of movies which have Dr. Phil Specials -- some kind of extra scene or bonus that is included in or after the credits. I suppose if I'd ever actually posted my review of Iron Man two years ago, I wouldn't have forgotten. In the first movie, the extra bit involves Tony Stark being asked to use his Iron Man suit against The Hulk, i.e. fugitive David Banner. In the new movie -- well hell, go see the movie and sit through the credits. I did. (grin)
Also, my theory of sequels suggests that most sequels have the problem that they can't have or recapture the innocence lost in the original. I suspect that one of the reasons that Iron Man 2 works so well is that (a) Iron Man isn't all that innocent, because Tony Stark isn't an innocent. Indeed, he builds his first suit as an act of defiance, and then upset at how he saw his company's products being used by the wrong people for bad deeds, he gets home and works to perfect the suit. Or at least make it work more better. (grin) (b) For all his arrogance and the missteps said arrogance engender, Tony Stark has a couple of serious problems in Iron Man 2 that he must again Must Solve Or Die, thus recapturing at least some of the residual innocence of the original. So good on them.
Trailers: Of course sitting in Row 2 centered seats in front of the humongous IMAX screen before Iron Man 2 started, we were going to get trailers optimized for IMAX content -- go figure. (obvious grin) So these are not necessarily the trailers showing in the regular cinema theatres just a few hundred feet away. First up, two involving Leonardo DiCaprio. Now I make fun of Leo, but the fact is that he really can act -- Titanic might not be his finest, but Catch Me If You Can is brilliant and he was smoldering in Gangs of New York and exciting/heading into dementia as Howard Hughes in The Aviator. We skipped Shutter Island, but this new movie Inception, with its strange fantastic dream imagery, looks to be the best dream world visualization since Robin Williams' What Dreams May Come. Then again Leo is the narrator for the Hubble 3D IMAX film about the final repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Now the Space Station 3D IMAX film was, at the time, the closest thing I figured I'd ever see to actually going into space myself. I can only hope that the Hubble repair mission is equally enthralling.
Given the success of the first two, why am I not surprised that the third Twilight movie will be released in an IMAX format?
Then there's the IMAX 3D animated movies Shrek 4 and -- the big one -- Toy Story 3. Now Toy Story 1&2 are much loved stories. One hopes that they can recapture the magic One More Time and avoid the dreaded Third Film Sequel Decline. And then there's the modern/retro/homage IMAX 3D Tron Legacy, due on 17 December 2010, I believe it is. This trailer provides a backstory link to the original Tron and only a glimpse to the inside world of wonders. Tron wasn't a great film originally, but its graphics were clean and sharp and looked good on the big screen -- the lightcycles alone with their razor edged turns were amazing. I am really hoping that Tron Legacy is good.
Really? REALLY?
Late Sunday night I ran into this movie on the so-called SyFy Channel, which I eventually discovered was called Mutant Chronicles. After watching parts of it, while flipping back and forth with other shows, I looked it up on Wikipedia -- a great source for figuring out plots of TV shows and movies that you either don't want to watch, have only seen part of, or can't figure out what the hell was going on -- and found it was based on a video game series. Oh, well that explains why it wasn't coherent. Still, where I came in had a steampunk space capsule and Ron Perlman and despite the really bad landing, that was enough for me to see bits of it. Sorry, but most movies spawned from video games have real problems. The battle scenes against the mutants would probably be better behind a game controller than as a passive movie watch. Just saying. Somehow I missed this one when it had what sounded like limited U.S. theatre release -- and I'm not sad that I did. (evil grin)
And now I'm a little bit more caught up with posting that I was last night.
Dr. Phil
