I've been thinking about this for a month and a half now, wondering how I could possibly condense all of my hatred of Iron Man (currently in the form of ten pages of scrawled notes and a small handful of aneurisms) into a brief, coherent blog post. I'm not sure I can, but I'll take a stab at it anyway.
Let's begin with a little analogy that I feel properly explains everything about Iron Man:
Fantastic : Detestable :: WALL-E : Iron Man (which, incidentally, is synonymous with Cracklin' Oat Bran : Galloping Gertie, but I digress)
But in case you need more convincing, I'll elaborate:
Things That Make Iron Man A Steaming Loaf of Bullshit:
Booze, Gadgets, Cars and Sex
Now I know what you're thinking: Those are all fantastic things! I completely agree. In fact, the only thing that would have made WALL-E even better is some greasy, drunken robot love.
Nevertheless, it's worth pointing out that Iron Man clearly took a rejected Entourage script, made it an hour and a half long, and blew some shit up. There is NO substance! I would have no problem with this if people hadn't raved about how absolutely fantastic Iron Man was... just about everybody I talked to made it seem like Iron Man rivaled There Will Be Blood - 0r Batman Begins, at least.
Let me highlight a few scenes:
The movie wastes no time in throwing all this crap at us: Not one minute in and we've got Tony Stark drinking up, making sex jokes, talking about banging 12 Maxim models, and cracking wise about Myspace and gang signs (LOL!). Oh man this movie's gonna be so deep!
A little later, we get some ridiculously hot reporter interviewing Tony Stark, bringing up several ethical questions about the very real subject of arms manufacture....yawnnnnnnnnn, I don't want to have to think!... Oh wait, they just started fucking!! Whew! These writers know what I came here to see! I really hope they don't bring that crap up again [they don't]!
Then we've got Robert Downey Jr. and Terrence Howard chilling on the plane. Naturally, the former has a drink in his hand (Apparently Downey Jr. won't put his drink down long enough to film a scene), and offers sake to the much more straight-laced Howard. Next thing you know, they're both hammered, and the plane has turned in to a dance club of sorts, with all the insanely hot stewardesses ("flight attendants" is not nearly sexist enough to describe them) grinding up on a stripper pole. What the FUCK!?!???! I'd expect this from Vince and Turtle, maybe, but not from a movie that has 93% positive reviews. I've seriously seen more sensible plots on Bang Bus.
I could continue with the countless excesses, status symbols and unneccessary pop culture references the movie has, but just rewatching these scenes has caused a rage filled blood vessel of mine to explode, so I should probably move on.
Product Placement
It's really no surprise that a movie throwing more consumerism at us than a Price Is Right marathon is riddled with blatant product placement.
Things I felt compelled to buy after watching Iron Man:
A new Verizon LG phone
Lots and lots of "Burger King American Cheeseburgers" (Tony Stark's words, not mine)
Subscription to Maxim
Multi-million dollar Jackson Pollack painting (Solely because it's extremely expensive, since that was super-cool Tony Stark's reason for getting one)
Subscription to Vanity Fair
More Audis than I can count
Propaganda
(Warning: For this section, Mazzy transformed into his own Superhero alias - Liberal Man! Proceed with caution)
The biggest product placement of all?
America.
Twice during the movie, the military higher-ups decide that it's best to report strange, Iron Man-related deaths to the American public as training misisons gone awry. This is done in a casual, but matter-of-fact manner, being joked about by all parties. Clearly, there is the tacit acceptance that it's the military's right (and duty) to lie to the public.
And every time the terrorists are shown, they have an uncanny resemblance to those pesky Middle Easterners we're bombing the shit out of. They show Tony Stark being held hostage by a bunch of terrorists, who've put a burlap bag on his head and are pointing guns at him. Hmmm... that's EXACTLY like those damn Iraqi terrorists I've seen in the newspaper! Let's kill them all!
Tony Stark even knows that he won't be set free by these evil people... they're far too evil to negotiate with. Let's kill them all!!
Oh man! Tony Stark just joked about all those bad guys living in caves! Doesn't Bin Laden live in a cave??? Let's kill them all!!!
Once Iron Man makes it clear that we need to kill all evil Middle Easterners, the movie shows us just how easy that is! Just as one particularly evil group of terrorists is going to murder a man in front of his kids and wife, Iron Man (AKA Tony Stark, the embodiment of everything American, and the manufacturer of our military's weapons) busts in and instantly kills all of them while sparing the hostages they have in their arms. Message to viewers: "These ragheads don't stand a chance against AMERICA."
The propaganda isn't just limited to the military... remember that hydrogen-powered bus shown during the epic battle between Tony Stark and The Dude? Well America and all of its gas-guzzling car companies can't have this earthy, sustainable shit! Tony Stark gets thrown through the bus, ripping through its hydrogen-advertising side. Uh oh, looks like hydrogen power took quite a hit the- OH SHIT! THE BUS JUST EXPLODED! Message to viewers: " FUCK hydrogen power."
Other Stuff
At one point, they show some E! reporter talking about an event that evening: "Whatever the case may be... no one expects an appearance from Tony Stark tonight!" Well guess what happens next?!?
HOLY SHIT! TONY STARK SHOWED UP! ZOMGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!
Later, Terrence Howard looks at the Iron Man suit, contemplates for a second, and then says, "Next time" as he walks away. Oh you're gonna wear the suit next time, air force man? Yeah, Paramount, we know you're making a trilogy. Do you really need to make it that blatant for the audience? (Yes, because the average American kid who eats this trash up is dumb as a funnel full of wing-nuts.)
Lastly, I hated that repeatedly throughout the movie, you'd see shadows stand up in front of the camera and walk off the side of the screen. Oh, you didn't notice that? I guess that was just in my copy.
In entirely unrelated news, I'm working on a little project that requires a male who can sing an excellent Meat Loaf rendition. Seriously. Let me know if you feel up to the task.
