The Incredible Hulk

Ahh The Incredible Hulk, the Marvel film that time, and Marvel just want to forget. But why? Was it really that bad?

Here's a little bit of context.

In 2003, a film simple titled, Hulk, was released. It starred Eric Bana directed by Ang Lee and... I never watched it. Hulk was never really interesting to me, I didn't think it looked appealing, so I can't say whether or not it was good or not. But the rest of the world can as the movie tanked and was a commercial and critical failure.

Enter 2008, only a month after the critically successful Iron Man, Hulk is rebooted after only 5 years and its the next installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Now I should be fair and say its not exactly a movie that everyone has forgotten about. The movie did well at the box office and for the most part the reviews were not incredibly positive, but also not incredibly horrible. To me, the reception of this film, especially in the years since, have been lukewarm. Don't quote me on this but I believe that while it did well at the box office, its the lowest grossing Marvel film to date.

But is it as lukewarm as people often say that it is? Well...

The Incredible Hulk follows the story of Bruce Banner (played by Edward Norton). The film starts out showing the origin story in the credits, of a science experiment with Gamma Radiation gone wrong and Bruce Banner being given the curse of turning into a giant green hulk who goes on murderous rampages when he gets too excited or angry.

It was really interesting how the film did this. This movie was by no means an origin story. The origin is quickly passed over, probably because this was a reboot and they didn't want to waste time telling you the same thing Ang Lee did.

The story is essentially Bruce Banner searching for a cure to his Hulk inducing gamma radiation.

Throughout the film he's communicating with an anonymous source online code named "Mr. Blue" as to how to find a cure for his condition. All the while, the military, headed up by General Ross (played by William Hurt), are trying to hunt him down. Ross recruited the help of a British Special Forces officer (played by Tim Roth) and eventually injects him with the same stuff they injected into Banner.

Roth's character is in awe of the power of The Hulk when he finally sees him, and he becomes mad with power, wanting to become more and more powerful, and is always looking for a fight.

The main problem right off the bat is that, there's not really that much of a story in The Incredible Hulk. Iron Man's story is thin but at least its corporate jargon, The Incredible Hulk is essentially Dr. Jeykll and Mr. Hyde and isn't exactly a superhero story at all. Which is okay, I think Marvel has shown us that they don't need to follow the typical superhero story. However, the redeeming part of Iron Man's thin story is that Tony Stark is a likable character and has his own internal struggle that we can relate to, and cheer him on as he faces the external threat.

Bruce Banner is just not that interesting. And I don't blame Edward Norton, he's actually the part of the movie that I really like. No, I blame the writers for this mess, because while looking for a cure I guess could be considered a story, its so bare bones that its essentially Bruce Banner just running from place to place. I wouldn't say there isn't a story at all, I would just say its not executed entirely correct.

Furthermore, I don't think Bruce Banner is written like an incredibly unique person. You figure out in The Avengers, that Bruce Banner is in fact a brilliant scientist, but in this movie, he's just a guy who needs to learn to control his anger. There's not a lot of parts that really show off that Bruce Banner is a genius of any kind. The way you could see The Incredible Hulk is like a not so great Bourne movie where if Jason Bourne gets too angry, he turns into a giant green Hulk. The science and discovery is mainly done by others and for the majority of the film, Bruce Banner is just running.

What was great about Mark Ruffalo's incarnation of The Hulk in The Avengers was the fact that he was a scientist. He was brought aboard for his scientific knowledge on Gamma radiation (or at least that's what he was told). Bruce Banner was just as interesting as The Hulk was. The reason his and Tony Stark's bromance is so interesting is because they share that intellect.

Then you've got your main villain in Tim Roth.

Now I think Tim Roth was actually one of the better parts of the movie and with a little bit of tweaking, his incarnation of Abomination could have been (and hell even still could be) a really great Marvel villain, and god knows they need one of those.

Roth's character is interesting because instead of running in fear of the Hulk, he thinks its a magnificent example of strength and power and he's jealous. So much that he willfully volunteers and forces Tim Blake Nelson's character to induce a Hulk rampage into him at the end.

The problem with Roth's character is that the whole idea of injecting him with the same thing Banner was injected with, seeing Banner, doesn't make much sense. The military knows that the Hulk is uncontrollable... so they give Roth's character the same thing? I don't care if its in smaller doses, does that at all seem like a horrible idea... at all?

Furthermore, at the end when Roth does turn into Abomination, suddenly all the interesting parts about him being a villain go away and turn into just an excuse to get The Hulk to face off against another Hulk in Abomination. They needed that one last huge fight to make this movie a true action flick.

And why do they fight? Cause Abomination is going rampage. Why? ...Cause he wants... a good fight? I don't know, you could possibly mock it up to, he's just as disoriented as Banner is when he becomes the Hulk but because Roth's character talks while he's Abomination, I somehow get that he's very conscience of what he's doing. So why is he going and running a much in New York.... because that's why.

I definitely don't think Abomination is the worst Marvel villain to date, in fact I think there are parts of him that are actually really interesting. However, his final scene and lack of motivation to just go on a rampage, kind of makes this villain not that great.

On the other end of the villain role in this movie is William Hurt playing General Ross. While I don't think he's awful, Ross is your typical military general type who cares more about creating weapons than scientific research of whatever Banner's research could be used for. Its been done better and in the end, General Ross is one of those characters that just kind of disappears into obscurity in the superhero film realm.

The truth is, I like William Hurt. I know he hasn't been in great films but I still for some reason kind of like him. I think General Ross could have had a bigger role in the Marvel Universe had this movie been better and his character been more interesting. But for what it is, the best purpose General Ross will serve is to create that end credit scene. I'll get to that near the end of the review.

And then we have Betty.

While not the worst performance Liv Tyler has ever given, you have to go into this knowing that this is a Liv Tyler performance. She's very good at whisper acting... if that were a thing, and when she's screaming, it just seems strange. On top of all of that, she's just not a very good actor. I think she has roles that work for her, like That Thing You Do and Lord of the Rings, but those roles didn't really require too much of her. Here she's expected to be the female lead and carry the movie. In reality, she's just not a strong enough actor to really make me care.

The relationship between her and Banner is just down right strange as she is engaged to Ty Burrell, but hey, its Edward Norton, who wouldn't say screw it to every vow you intended to make and try to get with that?

The fact of the matter is, their relationship is made up of nothing. That was the one downfall of the credit montage of the origin story, we assume there was something there but we don't know what their relationship was like so when she's making out with Bruce Banner, it doesn't look too great for her when we know she's engaged.

But on top of all of that, the major downside of this film is the romance. Not only do the two of them have almost no chemistry, the romance really takes away time that could have been spent developing Bruce as a character, or adding a little bit more to this pretty thin story. Bruce could have been gathering resources to make a cure, dealing with sporadic Hulk occurrences, something that would have put a little bit more tension into the film beyond "Don't let the Army get me". But instead the movie is bogged down by this romance, and another element, in jokes.

Ha! Get it? Cause the Hulk had purple pants in the comic, the TV and other interpretations of the comic! I like a few references to the source material here and there, but this movie just seemed to be poking fun at itself left and right. The Pants, The Lou Ferrigno cameo, it goes on and on.

I did think Banner struggling with Portugese and saying you wouldn't like it when I'm hungry was kind of funny, but when the movie just keeps on poking fun at itself, it breaches the point of not taking itself seriously enough and suddenly I lose interest. A clever nod here and there to the source material is good, but when the cameos and nods are so obvious, it just get obnoxious.

I've been shitting on this movie a lot, and rightfully so, but the truth is, I actually really like this movie. A lot of people complain about the final fight scene but despite the circumstances leading up to Abomination's rampage, I thought it was a really cool fight scene and a great way to show off The Hulk's power against someone his own size. While I don't think Bruce Banner is by any means a Bourne like character, I did kind of like the evading the military element of the story. Again, I think he'd have to be tweaked a little bit, but I would actually love to see Tim Roth return as Abomination in future movies.

And in a strange way, a good thing to come out of this movie was that it really didn't create any hurdles for Mark Ruffalo when he took over.

Maybe that's an insult to the movie, but the fact of the matter is, it was so thin, especially when it came to Bruce Banner as a character, that Mark Ruffalo could really come in and could have played any type of character and it probably would have fit in pretty well with continuity.

Again, I don't think the movie was Edward Norton's fault and I think Norton actually tried to edit the script a little bit to give him some more character, something I believe Marvel shut down pretty quickly, but there wasn't much to have to build around for Mark Ruffalo when he came into the Hulk. I don't know the whole story of Norton's departure from the project so I won't cast blame or point fingers, but I think, in the end, Ruffalo will make a better Hulk. I would say has made a better Hulk but to be honest, we've only seen him in one film, a film he had to share screen time with. I'll say he did a good job, but let's not claim Ruffalo is the Bruce Banner we've been waiting for quite yet, at least not until we see Age of Ultron.

The other thing worth mentioning is that post credit scene.

It served a purpose. It wasn't necessarily good, it wasn't necessarily bad, it just served a purpose. Looking at things now, the scene doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Tony Stark during Iron Man 2 is still kind of in the dark about The Avenger Initiative. In the Avengers, Banner is brought in more for his scientific knowledge, not the fact that he turns into the Hulk. I'm really glad it didn't turn out the way it kind of sounds like it was going to turn out by this post credit scene.

But again, this scene served a purpose. They could have had Samuel L. Jackson come in, do the same thing. But instead they choose Tony Stark. Why? To show that these characters exist in the same universe. Its one thing to have SHIELD pop up here and there (references that were actually really subtle, so way to go Marvel) but its another thing to show Tony Stark, coming right off his huge success not a month earlier, and say we're forming a team. Again... it served a purpose.

So where does that leave us now? What is the future for The Hulk and where is his place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Well we know now that Mark Ruffalo is going to be the Hulk for quite a while. We know that he kicks ass, we know that he, for the most part, has control over his Hulk abilities, he's now a full fledged member of The Avengers.

We also know that something is going to go terribly wrong with him in Age of Ultron.

There's a lot of theories, one that he's being possessed by Scarlet Witch, another that the start of Civil War is already happening in Age of Ultron.

Here's my theory. There's hints of Bruce Banner and Black Widow having somewhat of a relationship that is first shown in Age of Ultron. At first I didn't really think that much of it, but then I think back to the images shown in the Age of Ultron trailer.

Images of Bruce in the middle of the woods looking like he's in pain and looking like he's going to turn into the Hulk again. Sequences of him fighting Tony Stark clad in the Hulk buster armor.

My theory is that Tony Stark creates Ultron in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure off the Avengers and their superheroing around the world. Banner sees this as an opportunity to try and get rid of the Hulk and live a normal life, possibly with Natasha. His experiments go wrong and suddenly he starts losing control of his ability to change in and out of the Hulk.

Maybe its rage induced rampages, maybe its Tony Stark thinking that he needs to control the Hulk suddenly that makes Bruce Banner snap, but eventually, Banner is going to lose his temper and go off the handle causing the battle between him and the Hulk Buster.

Add a couple details in there, shift it around to fit with the larger story, but I am putting money on the theory that Bruce Banner is going to have a huge part in Avengers Age of Ultron. And the consequences of his actions in this film, are going to spark events like the Civil War and later events.

Nothing has been mentioned and I'm not totally sure I want this to totally happen, but I'm convinced that down the road, Bruce Banner is getting a one way ticket into space, courtesy of Tony Stark.

 A lot of people are speculating that eventually we're going to get a planet Hulk movie.

I don't want to see that.

I don't know the entirety of the storyline, but the way I understand it is that Hulk is sent off into space, he lands on a planet and becomes king of the planet.

Honestly, I could care less about Hulk becoming king of a planet but hey I've seen a Racoon and a Tree entertain the hell out of me, and hey maybe that's where there could be a cross over of the two. What if the Hulk shows up in Guardians 2? Huh? Maybe Hulk will be sent up into space at the end of Ultron, he crosses over with the Guardians. I would actually be kind of cool with that. But from what I understand of the Planet Hulk storyline, I don't really have much of an interest in a Planet Hulk movie.

However...

Hulk coming back and swearing revenge on whoever sent him up to space, whether that's Tony Stark, the US government, whoever, I would be interested in Mark Ruffalo playing the Hulk, as the villain of a Marvel film. That, I think, could be a lot of fun.

Maybe while he's doing his crossover with the Guardians, he meets Thanos, Thanos persuades him to help him find the rest of the Infinity Stones, Part one of Infinity Wars is Avengers vs Hulk, then Part two is when Thanos double crosses Hulk and then its all the Avengers vs Thanos in Part 2. I don't know, I'm just spitballing at this point.

Marvel is saying that Hulk is going to have a big role coming up in the next phase but that's kind of hard to believe when there's no sequel to this film, no movie just focusing on The Hulk.

But I'm gonna wrap this up.

The Incredible Hulk has a lot of things going for it. The Hulk is an interesting and nonconventional superhero (if you can even call him one) and I think in comparison with Ang Lee's Hulk, this movie was great. But the story is really thin, there's little to no character development, and the movie is just bogged down with romance and the fact that it doesn't take itself seriously enough.

I think Marvel knew this movie wasn't great but by the time the movie was released, they didn't really care because Iron Man had done so well. Their cinematic universe had at least lifted off and as long as the movie was better than the previous Hulk film, it didn't matter that its still the lowest grossing Marvel movie.

And Marvel has gotten to the point where they don't need to do another sequel. If fans are calling for more Hulk, they can tag him onto another property just to give that lesser known property a little bit of a boost and they don't need to go through the process of writing another standalone Hulk film.

As much as I would have liked to see a sequel to this film, I think its probably best if Hulk remains an essential side character, as opposed to carrying his own film. Could I see Mark Ruffalo carrying his own film as Hulk? Well... I'll have to see what they do with him in Age of Ultron, if my theories are even half of what they end up doing, I think I'll be pretty happy. And you know what, it doesn't matter because Hulk gave us this scene.

So what do you think of The Incredible Hulk? Is it right to say that its the movie Marvel forgot? Which Hulk do you prefer? Ruffalo or Norton? And what place do you think the Hulk is going to have in the MCU moving forward. Comment and Discuss below! Also shoot me a tweet @cmhaugen24 and follow me on Twitter to get updates on movie news and reviews.

American Beauty

American Beauty is a very strange movie. It was recommended by my friend. He gave me a pile of movies about a year ago and I think that I have gotten to maybe one other one than American Beauty. It was Blow, and it was about a year ago. But American Beauty, he swore by. 

I have no finally gotten to this film and... well...

American Beauty is a film that came out in 1999 that follows the story of Lester Burnham (played by

Kevin Spacey. He's a loser, his wife despises him, his daughter despises him and the weird thing is, its not exactly warranted. We're introduced to these characters and immediately they hate each other. Yeah Burnham isn't exactly the most conscience person, he could probably pay more attention to his wife and daughter but nothing really says that he's a bad person... yet. His wife (played by Annette Benning) is a real estate agent who is very materialistic. At the beginning of the film she begins an infatuation with a rival real estate agent... that'll come in later.

Their daughter (played by Thora Birch) is your typical 90s angsty teenager. Nobody understands her, she's unsatisfied with her body. And she really has some bitchy friends. The nucleus of all the conflict in this film really comes from her friend Angela (played by Mena Suvari). The first time Lester sees her, he becomes infatuated with her and just wants to get with her. Basically his quest to sleep with his daughter's friend sends him on a crash course of a midlife crisis where he quits his job, starts working out, starts buying weed from the creepy stalker kid next door (played by Wes Bentley, or that guy from the Hunger Games), and just goes off the deep end. 

All the while you've got his wife having an affair with the rival real estate agent, Wes Bentley getting abused by his marine father (played by Chris Cooper) and just a lot of shit that lies underneath the illusion that this middle class family has everything perfect. 

To start off, I understand why this movie is popular. I understand why it was highly praised by critics,

I understand the artistic vision taken with this film, I understand the themes and arcs that take place in this movie.

What I don't understand however is how people can think this was the best movie of 1999. I was 7 at the time and honestly the best thing I remember from 1999 was Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, so I know I was no consosiuer of film at that age, but the best film of 1999? Winner of Best Picture, Best Actor AND Best Director (and others)?!?!

What the hell?

This movie was given five Oscars for being American Psycho meets Office Space. Cause that's essentially what this movie is. I mean I know this movie came out the same year if not before both those films, but was that the missing part of the recipe for American Psycho? Add just a splash of Office Space and a sexy teenager that Christian Bale could creep on?

I have to give the movie credit for its very apparent symbolism and its ability to make you wonder, what could this symbolize and what could this mean. But I think it gets to a point where the movie stops being deep and starts being pretentious.

I'm talking of course, about the bag scene. You've got this kid who lives across the street who falls in love with Spacey's daughter and he spent a long time in a mental hospital. So of course, Thora Birch finds that deep. His thing is that he really likes film and finds art in it. So much that he filmed a bag floating in the wind. 

AND THIS IS THE MOST INSPIRING THING HE HAS EVER SEEN IN THE HISTORY OF EVER!

I don't mean to be a dick, I know art is totally subjective, but what the hell is this?

Its scenes like this that kind of make me grown and say, Okay, okay, we get it, you're trying to make a point. The movie stops being subtle and instead becomes incredibly pretentious. There's symbolism that is up for interpretation, like the roses everywhere, or the color red. What could it mean? Who knows, thats really up to what you pull out of the movie. These are things that happen in the background and don't take away from the film. But when we spend an entire five minutes on watching a bag float in the wind, suddenly I feel like my time is being wasted. 

The other part of the movie that kind of bothered me was the fact that we all knew Kevin Spacey was going to die at the end. Telling you who kills him would be the spoiler but the fact that he dies is not a spoiler as he says, I'm going to die at the beginning. The movie wants to make you think its going to be one direct person who kills him and then it kind of switches that up and makes it a who dunnit kind of out of no where and the person who killed him really was not my choice as to who would have killed him and who it would have made sense, but hey, I'm not the writer. 

What I did really like about this movie was the ending. 

Honestly, there's a point in the movie where Kevin Spacey has been working tirelessly to become a better person. He's quit his mundane job, he's been working out, he's happy, he's free from the social constrains of the suburban lifestyle (bleh puke) and he's about to get everything he wants.

And then there's a moment where he snaps out of it. Its almost like a curse had been over him this entire time of his midlife crisis and suddenly someone who's not a douchebag appears. That scene was done very well and actually kind of made me like this asshole a little bit.

The last interaction with Spacey and his daughters friend is very, very good.

However, its a very strange transition because honestly, Spacey's awakening is a character we've honestly never met before.

Everyone is a total asshole in this movie. Say its all about the symbolism, say its all about the themes, or that this movie is more of a satire. Whatever, my point is, I don't like any of these characters. They're all kind of assholes. So its kind of hard to enjoy their transitions, their development if they're all satire, or in other words, the movie is too pretentious for its own good.

There are a lot of good messages, themes, whatever you wanna call them in American Beauty. But there's not really that great of characters. The movie, to me, just seems like it loves the smells of its own farts and it doesn't really spell out a perfect movie to me.

Again, I can see how this movie is good. Its a very smart movie and the direction of it was actually really good. However, when actual storytelling is sacrificed for beat you over the head messages, I just kind of lose interest. I do think American Beauty is a good film, I just don't think its a great film. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and see it just to be on the in of something. But go into it with an open mind. Forget all the accolades, forget the critical praise, even forget this review and just enjoy a well directed movie and a pretty good performance by Spacey.

Those are my thoughts on American Beauty. What did you think? Comment and Discuss below, especially if you watch it with a clear mind and have an unbiased opinion on it. I would like to hear the big appeal of this movie. Shoot me a tweet @cmhaugen24 and follow me on Twitter to get updates on movie news and reviews.

I'll leave you with this. Family Guy just gets me sometimes. Enjoy! (sorry about the quality)

Life With Mikey

Honestly, there's a pretty good chance that you've never heard of this film. I'm pretty surprised that i know about it myself. However, my parents were big fans of Michael J Fox and therefore I got the pleasure of watching some of his work prior to him retiring from acting. Outside of Back to the Future, Life with Mikey was actually one of my favorite movies growing up.

So why am I not only watching it as an adult and critiquing it like an adult? Cause my childhood died many years ago that's why.

Life With Mikey stars Michael J Fox as a former child star who is now a talent agent with his brother (played by Nathan Lane). Now part of this movie always confused me. There are parts here and there in the movie where they're watching kids perform. Its cheesy, its for kids, whatever. I'm not totally sure if they're representing these kids or just watching a lot of auditions but if they're not representing them, why do these kids keep showing up?

But that's not the main story. Michael Chapman (Fox) is basically a hasbeen who is not serious about his job, lives off the fame his childhood job gave him, and overall isn't an incredibly straight and narrow person. Think BoJack Horseman. His brother puts up with him, for some reason, but is seriously considering closing the business if their luck doesn't turn around. They have one big client, a pretentious kid named Barry (played by the head elf from the Santa Claus movies for all you 90s people out there, David Krumholtz) but beyond that they have a bunch of kids who, to put it bluntly, have no talent.

Then Michael meets a young girl on the street who steals his wallet. Through a series of events, he sees her acting and decides that she has the chops to be represented and could make him and his brother a lot of money.

From this sprouts an unconventional relationship between Michael and this tom boy, Angie (played by Christina Vidal). You can tell from the beginning that she has a bad upbringing and she is something of a problem child. But Michael isn't a father and he makes that very clear to Angie and those around him.

They get her to audition for a cookie commercial, a gig that she actually gets and things go pretty well.

The problem with this film unfortunately lies in the relationship between Michael and Angie. Now I personally really like these two. They don't get along at the beginning, but more and more he breaks through her shell and the two become good friends. However, it doesn't quite reach the level that I think its suppose to, and there's also the whole deal of how its a little strange for a thirty year old man to house a ten year old girl just because he's her "agent". Probably wouldn't fly in this day and age.

But hey, the 90's were a different time.

Also, its Michael J Fox.

Something about the guy just makes you forget all the bad things you could ever hear about the man and just find him lovable. The interesting thing about his character is that he's still caught up in the fact that he was a celebrity when he was a child. That's his angle many times when he tries to get these kids jobs, he'll play off the fact that people really enjoyed him in the sitcom he was apart of.

Its an interesting take, especially with what I've seen actual child hood stars think about their careers. Usually they get agitated when people bring up their past work. Its movies like this that actually make me appreciate BoJack Horseman a little bit more because there are actually scenes where Michael is watching reruns of Life with Mikey, the TV show he was in.

I wish there had been a little bit more development on his part, of him kind of getting off his so called fame, and realizing he's something more, especially if its a role model to Angie. But hey, its a family flick, I didn't write it, I still love it, if not for nostalgia's sake.

Christina Vidal plays Angie. To be honest, this kid is a little bit of a snot. Its one thing that she actually kind of lifts a mirror on Michael and tries to make him a better person once they become friends.

But throughout the movie, her problems just seemed like angsty kid problems and were just her being a snot. Eventually there is kind of a breaking down of the tough girl persona and her and Michael really do get along. I can't say, looking back at it, that its a great dynamic between the two of them, however, there are some fun moments and I think its the fact that Michael cares for her, that you have no choice but to kind of care for her yourself. Maybe I'm being too nice because its more of a nostalgia thing with this movie, but I'm trying to be a little bit objective.

Some of the supporting characters are kind of funny. I never really understood why Nathan Lane's character really puts up with Fox's character. There's a lot of set up to Michael being this irresponsible guy and yet Lane's character doesn't really do anything about it. Their secretary is kind of funny, but not very memorable. And the rest of the cast is not really important to mention, beyond the kids at the talent agency who are kind of funny, but in the end you get kind of sick of the audition montage.

I like this movie mainly for the nostalgia sake of it. This is a movie that I watched with my family over and over and over again because Michael J Fox was entertaining. It was a fun little ride and highlighted a cute relationship between Fox and Vidal's characters.

Is it going to blow your mind? Unless you grew up with it like I did, probably not. But the movie has some funny lines, some memorable scenes, and just kind of gives you a fuzzy feeling at the, slightly over the top, and improbable ending.

Honestly, that's probably the biggest problem of the film. Nathan Lane is set on closing down the building and they listen to one last audition that needs to be their next big client. Now, I don't mean to be cruel, but the girl that they bring in is not bad, but she's also not incredible. She's a little bit better than most of the kids in the agency, but not by much. And the kids they have at the agency aren't suppose to be good. How this last ditch effort convinces Nathan Lane's character to keep the business open, is still beyond me. However, I still find this movie incredibly entertaining, I can still quote lines from it, and if you need a family film, its not a bad one to watch with young kids or just get a nostalgia trip of the 90s.

So those are my thoughts on Life With Mikey. Am I the only one who watched this movie as a kid? There has to be someone else who gets as much nostalgia as I do from this film. Comment and Discuss below! Also, shoot me a tweet @cmhaugen24 and follow me on Twitter for news updates and movie reviews.

I'll leave you with this. Hopefully I gave a good enough description. Here's the actual trailer of the film. Enjoy!

Iron Man

And so it begins. My goal is to re-watch all the Marvel movies prior to Age of Ultron, in preparation for the film that comes out in May. Since I have a busy schedule and as you all know I get distracted with other things and my movie playlists often fall to the wayside (e.i. My Batman franchise watching "series") I have decided to star this now and hopefully I'll get through all of them. I probably should have started earlier but I'm starting now.

This is really where it began. Whenever I do my rants on Marvel and talk about how incredible their run has been and is still going, I always point to the beginning with Iron Man. The movie that started it all.

But does it hold up? I sort of alluded to this in my recent Spider-man post but prior to Iron Man, the number of good superhero films were few and far between.

Prior to 2008, the superhero genre looked all but dead. Spider-man was dying with Spider-man 3, the Superman reboot/remake/sequel in Superman Returns had failed, X-Men The Last Stand bombed as well. All we had was a pretty good Batman movie in Batman Begins.

Though I would probably make the argument that it was Batman Begins that reinvented the superhero genre, I think Iron Man brought it back, in force. And all with nothing but a whisper of Samuel L Jackson at the end.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

My question is, does the movie stand the test of time. Yes it promised great things in the future to keep us interested. Yes it really introduced us to an iconic character that is Robert Downey Jr. But is the movie good?

Let's take a look.

Iron Man has a very different beginning than any other superhero we've seen before. Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr.) does not gain special powers, he doesn't suffer a loss or a tragedy that causes him to become Iron Man, instead he's a billionaire genius who in all reality, is kind of an asshole. He's selling weapons to the military, making a fortune off war, and being a playboy, conceded rich guy all while doing it.

Until he's captured by terrorists.

Suddenly Tony realizes that his cavalier attitude and lifestyle has had consequences. His weapons are now in the hands of terrorists, his company has had no accountability, and his legacy might be tarnished. Its here that Tony assembles his first Iron Man suit, escapes and finds his way home. That's really the first act of the movie. It shows Tony's lifestyle prior his capture, the neglecting of his friends like Rhodey (played this time by Terrence Howard). And an arrogant view on his job, facilitated by the under appreciated Pepper Potts (played by Gwyneth Paltrow). He's then captured, interacts with a fellow prisoner, learns a little bit of humility and altruism, and returns home to drastically change the direction of Stark Industries, much to the dismay of his family friend and partner, Obidiah Stane (played by Jeff Bridges).

One of the great things about Tony Stark as a character is that he's very consistent. Tony Stark is an arrogant asshole. He's basically Robert Downey Jr. However, there's a difference between being an arrogant asshole who has no concern for others and the impact of his company who Tony was at the beginning of the film, to an arrogant asshole who is actually conscience of others around him, especially the people he cares about and wanting to do good to make up for past mistakes. There's a shift in there that makes for a great superhero and a lot of it happens in the first act of the movie.

The second act is where things get a little bit iffy for me. If you're looking at traditional superhero origin stories, you've got the first act where the hero is introduced and so is the idea of his powers. The second act is him practicing with those powers, basically showing off. And the third act is when the main villain appears and the hero needs to face off with him bringing the exciting climax.

The problem with this movie is that a lot of the second act is kind of bogged down with corporate banter and politics. Its not that its hard to follow or anything, its just a little convoluted. Tony wants to close down the weapons development of Stark Industries, Obidiah thinks that is a horrible idea and wants to replace Tony as head of the company. All the while Tony wants to move the company into energy as opposed to weapons... but he doesn't actually do anything. He says he wants the weapons development division closed down but doesn't really work that hard to get the Arc reactor up and working.

If you know anything about the next Iron Man films, you know he eventually does, but if you're looking at this movie on its own, put aside all of Obidiah's shady dealings, he's not wrong to not have much confidence in Tony.

All this corporate politics can really be overlooked by the training and honing of skills Tony does to create and become Iron Man. These scenes are really fun and really do the whole training to be a superhero trope justice.

The problem I have with it is that its never really clear why Tony wants to create Iron Man. He created a cool suit during his capture sure but prior to flying off to Afghanistan to fight terrorists, there's not much of a reason Tony creates the suit beyond he just wants to create a cool suit.

Luckily, that is quickly fixed as he remembers his equipment and weapons are in the hands of terrorists and he goes to stop those terrorists to make up for his mistakes when he realizes he can't do it through the company. Outside of that, there's a lot of corporate warfare that in retrospect is actually really dry and kind of dull.

The problem with this is that suddenly the Iron Man suit becomes a high value item as Obidiah wants it for himself. I don't know, the whole creation of the Iron Man suits becomes a little bit contested when you realize that the very creation of the suit ousts Obidiah as the villain as he creates his own to be the ultimate war machine.

Again, its not there's huge loop holes in this movie, (just small ones) there have just been better films out there.

But I think the main reason Iron Man was such a huge success was because of the characters in the film. While the story wasn't the most original or incredibly fascinating story, the main attraction was the reason we loved this movie. And Robert Downey Jr. brings it. There are superhero characters that we just can't imagine anybody else playing. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is one of them, and because of this movie and all subsequent sequels, Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark is another.

Tony Stark is in essence RDJ and RDJ is in essence Tony Stark. He plays what he would in the future be known as, Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, in just the greatest way that we can't see the Iron Man mantle being taken up by anybody for years.

When Robert Downey Jr. leaves the Marvel universe, its going to be an incredible loss.

But while Marvel was really good at creating characters that made you forget about the mediocre stories, they weren't (and in a way, still aren't) good at creating very good villains.

Jeff Bridges as Obidiah Stane is by no means the worst villain to grace the Marvel Universe, but he's by no means great. Bridges does a good job playing the greedy partner in this corporate drama but I think its that very corporate drama that makes you kind of look back at all the villains of Marvel and kind of forget Obidiah Stane.

He's serviceable, Bridges of course gives a fun performance, but there's not much of a connection between him and Tony. Its not a huge surprise when he turns out to be the villain and for someone who has been a part of Tony's entire life, killing him seemed like Tony was getting rid of the babysitter or something. Obidiah has no legacy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he's just the bad guy for a spell and he's never mentioned again.

Now maybe that's a good thing. Maybe he just needed to be a one off villain to get the ball rolling. Again, the way its executed is serviceable but nothing incredibly memorable.

Aside from the villains, Iron Man has a decent cast of supporting characters. I actually forgot that Jon Favreau didn't have that big of a part in the first film. Its not a huge loss, it just surprised me.

Gwyneth Paltrow is kind of a question mark for me. I'm trying to take out what I know about her in later films, how she's kind of come into the role since this movie and look at her performance.

And she's... Okay.

She's a very capable love interest. She's interesting enough but she's not incredibly memorable, at least not in this film. While Pepper is an important part of Tony's life, she doesn't take on the importance that she will have until the next film, or even until the third film. In this film, she's very much an observer of Tony's story. Which isn't a bad thing. Its just nothing about her is incredibly unique. Lots of what she does could have been done by Rhodey. (Except for that whole dance thing, where they almost kiss... or maybe it could have) I get that they're setting up a romance and again, down the road, I've really come to like Tony and Pepper. But for now, I'm going to say again, she's serviceable, but not memorable.

I really liked Terrance Howard in this role. The relationship between Rhodey and Tony is actually really good in this film and I feel like its kind of lost when Cheadle comes into the role. I'll have to come back to that when I review Iron Man 2 and see if that's actually the case, but in many ways, Rhodey seemed more like a friend as opposed to that guy Tony works with who is eventually going to become War Machine/ Iron Patriot.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting something, but I felt like Rhodey's part was bigger in Iron Man and was lost in later films. Again, you'll have to wait till my review of Iron Man 2 to see if I actually liked Terrence Howard more than I like Don Cheadle in this role, but for now, I'll say that I really liked Terrence Howard in this role. It was well done and did add to the film, surprisingly, unlike Pepper Potts.

Clark Gregg started his career with Marvel with this role as Phil Coulson. honestly, this was a great way to introduce SHIELD. It was a great nod to the original material, it was a great set up for subsequent sequels, and while Coulson's part wasn't huge in this movie, I thought it was actually tastefully done.

In fact, I think if they hadn't gotten Samuel L Jackson to play Nick Fury, and the hint of The Avengers wasn't the mind blowing phenomena that it turned out to be, I think that end credit scene would have never happened and Coulson mentioning SHIELD would have been a teaser enough.

Iron Man is an iconic movie in its own right. I really hope that Man of Steel is, for DC, what Iron Man was for Marvel because it really did start something great. It really did create a universe and was not only the launch pad for other well known Marvel heroes like Captain America and Thor, but it also paved the way for some of the lesser known superheroes. Properties like Ant-man which in any other circumstance would have been laughed at, but because of Iron Man, its possible... no matter if its good or bad. It also made it so we saw Andy from Parks and Rec, team up with a wrestler, a navi, a raccoon, and a tree... Wow... Guardians really was a strange one.

And the interesting thing is, after a second look, I realize, Iron Man isn't even in my top five favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe films.

Is it a great film? No. Is it a good film? ...yes? As I've said before, Iron Man was serviceable, but beyond the origins of a beloved character and the start of something that was never done before in The Avengers, as a standalone movie, Iron Man is not incredibly memorable.

I think we often over hype a movie because its something we've never seen before not knowing that eventually, that movie is going to be surpassed. Its questionable how many movies it took to surpass Iron Man's legacy, but I think its fair to say by this point that it has been surpassed.

That's not to say the movie doesn't have merits and a lot can be said about the legacy the movie eventually creates. However, as a standalone film, Iron Man is... Okay. Not horrible, not great. Okay.

But those are my thoughts on Iron Man. The first in what I hope is going to be a continuing review series of all the Marvel movies up until we hit Age of Ultron. What do you think of my review of Iron Man? Do you think it holds up? Comment and Discuss below! Or shoot me a tweet @cmhaugen24 and follow me on Twitter for more movie news and reviews.

I'll leave you with this. You may think its a cop out that I'm doing a how it should have ended video, but the fun part about this video is that it was one of the first How it Should Have Ended videos. Enjoy!

Total Recall

You know that kind of sci fi that people are always parodying and you wonder what they're actually drawing that parody from? I don't think its Total Recall... but damn, this movie was strange.

Let me bring you back to a time well before Sabotage. When Arnold Schwarzenegger was not a governor, not quite a running joke yet, and America's number one action star...

There was this strange and yet incredibly awesome movie called Total Recall.

Total Recall takes place years into our future. We've colonized a lot of our galaxy and its almost the most science fictiony world you could ever imagine. (Apparently its 2084 but I don't remember them actually telling me that)

On Earth, you have Doug Quaid (played by Schwarzenegger), your average run of the mill construction worker, his really hot wife (played by Sharon Stone) and a recurring dream that he is, oddly enough, on Mars.

Quaid has never been on Mars but has an instinctual desire to go there for some reason. His wife discourages him, his work friends discourage him, saying there's nothing on Mars except for the scum and low life the galaxy has to offer. But Quaid persists.

His wife won't let him go so he decides to pay a visit to the local Recall offices. Recall implants memories into people's minds and has them relive the experience of someone who had been to Mars, or some place else.

But Quaid has a horrible reaction to the implantation and starts spouting off that he is a secret agent and he's been to Mars.

The technicians at Recall quickly incapacitate him, send him home on sedatives and make him forget that he ever visited Recall. However, when he returns home, he is attacked by the people closest to him, his friend, his wife even.

Suddenly, people are trying to kill Quaid and he doesn't know why. But he soon figures out that his life is an implant and his memories are fake.

He runs for his life, looking to find out who he really is, all while a shady organization, headed up by Michael Ironside searches for him to bring him back and use him for their shady purposes.

For a more up to date reference, think Paycheck, meets Inception, meets Star Wars.

You may be thinking, that's a strange combination... and you would be correct. Because as interesting as a lot of the science fiction of this film is, dealing with memory implants, mutants, psychic links, etc, there is a lot about this movie that falls into the category of the down right weird.

Like this...

I know that if Gravity has shown us anything, its not a good thing to be out in open space without oxygen, but this is just ridiculous. But its not just that. This movie just has a laundry list of just down right weird occurrences. 

Three boobed women, small prostitutes, Arnold in a dress, mutants just in general. Instead of mutants being very similar to humans like other movie franchises (especially those of today) Total Recall kind of does the opposite and makes mutants physically deformed. 

Like that kind of deformed...

On top of that, we have Arnold. 

Now if you read my Sabotage review, I kind of touched on the fact that I don't quite understand the phenomena with Arnold Schwarzenegger. I understand him as a gag, or a running joke, but movies like this are very serious. Schwarzenegger is the leading man and he's suppose to have some kind of appeal. An appeal, I just don't really get. 

Schwarzenegger is of course entertaining. When he's doing action sequences, spouting off one liners, and not really talking, I suppose I can see the appeal of him. But my god the guy is a horrible actor. 

And again, the Austrian accent. I've never really been able to look past it. It just feels out of place. Is it hilarious and I guess become a signature for him as an actor, yeah that is true. Its kind of like Stallone and his thing of mumbling. Neither are award winning actors, but when you go into a Schwarzenegger film, you get what you paid for. A lot of violence, a lot of blood spurts (which I think they should go back to), and a lot of probably unintentional funny moments. 

The other name worth mentioning is Sharon Stone.

I get it. 

For the longest time I could never understand the appeal with Sharon Stone. I had seen parts of Basic Instinct and I guess the part where you see in between her legs is a seductive and sexy scene, but outside of the fact that I saw in between her legs, I never really understood the appeal of Sharon Stone... until this movie. 

Damn, is Sharon Stone just a bombshell in this film. I would say her career didn't exactly go very well past this film. But she's not a horrible actress and she's entertaining in this film. She's not exactly well written but hey, its the 90s, women roles were never written that well. Outside of just how entertaining Schwarzenegger is just in general and how wacky the story is in general, Stone was probably the next best part of the film.

The other actor worth mentioning is Michael Ironside. Now I know Ironside mostly from his voice work as Sam Fisher in the Splinter Cell games in which he's awesome. But I also really like him as the villain in films... or just in film in general... I like Michael Ironside. I kind of wish the guy got more mainstream attention. He's been in some good films here and there but he's just kind of one of those obscure actors. 

There are a lot of other people in this film but those three are really the ones worth mentioning. The rest of the cast didn't really go anywhere outside of this movie and if they did, I didn't hear about them. 

The skinny of this is that Total Recall is a very strange film. You're going to get a lot of things in this movie that at the time were cutting edge technology and effects. Now they just look strange and kind of disturbing. 

However, there is a lot in this film that makes science fiction science fiction. Its this weird universe where you think of the campiest science fiction you can think of, and its probably in Total Recall. For that, I have to give the movie props. Its so obscure and so strange that its kind of an icon. Aside from being an Arnold action flick, its actually calling back to the out of this world science fiction that the book the movie is actually based on brought to the United States. 

To me, this is the kind of movie that makes me wonder what kind of science fiction would have happened if Star Wars wasn't a thing. This is kind of that obscure science fiction that nobody wants to talk about and instead of it being bad and cheesy, its actually kind of entertaining... and cheesy. 

If you like Schwarzenegger, you'll probably love this film. If you like the cheesy over the top Science Fiction, you'll love this movie. If you like Science fiction, you may find this interesting but its definitely not your mainstream science fiction... if you're just looking for a movie to watch... you might find Total Recall a little disturbing. If you're going to watch it, just go into it warned and ready for anything. 

But those are my thoughts on Total Recall. Maybe I'll watch the remake... maybe I won't. But until then, comment and discuss below. Hell, let me know if I should or not, do a comparison. You can also shoot me a tweet @cmhaugen24 and follow me on Twitter to get news updates and movie reviews. 

I'll leave you with this. Apparently Sylvester Stallone used to hate Arnold Schwarzenegger, makes sense. Here's a video from Fallon of him saying that. Enjoy!

Gravity

There are a lot of films from 2013 that I told myself I was going to see and then never really got around to seeing them. Gravity is one of those movies. The only reason I really watched it was by accident. My friend came by, said he was going to watch the movie, my other friend and I were playing Xbox on a bigger TV and offered it to him. And so the experience of watching Gravity happened.

Gravity really only has two cast members in it. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Bullock is Ryan Stone, a medical doctor on her first trip to space. Why she's in space, I'm not totally sure. She's doing some kind of biochemical engineering and for some reason that requires her to go into space, but all you really need to know is that she has never been in space before.

On the other hand you have George Clooney as Matt Kowalski, a veteran astronaut who is on his last day in space. He's been in space for so long that he was going for a record that he barely missed by a few hours. They're up in space doing whatever astronauts do in space when suddenly everything goes to shit. To be honest, its a little confusing how everything goes to hell but it does. The short answer is that the Russians are trying to dispose of a satellite so they blow it up with a missile. This causes a huge storm of debris to hit Stone and Kowalski's shuttle, tearing it to bits, killing the rest of their team, and stranding them in space.

The movie is their mission to survive and find a way to get back to earth, all while fighting the forces of no gravity in space.

Visually, the movie is absolutely stunning. If you've watched my reviews you know that I don't tend to focus on visuals and if I do its mainly a quick sentence saying how the movie looked pretty. But this movie was nominated and won a lot of awards based on the visuals and sounds mainly because that's all this movie is. Its a movie that just looks and sounds amazing. The purpose of the movie is to make you feel as though you are in space. Its to show you the vast vacuum of space and the true deafening silence that goes along with it. Its paired beautifully with the visuals as these space stations explode around our characters in what would usually be a Michael Bay wet dream and instead of loud explosions, all we hear is nothing. We see Sandra Bullock get tossed around like a rag doll and yet we hear absolutely nothing.

On top of that there's this experience that I'm sure was just amazing in the theaters of the movie trying to put you in the perspective of astronauts as they're floating uncontrollably in space. If there was ever a movie that gave a beautiful representation of zero gravity, Gravity is the closest thing to that.

Story wise is it a great movie though? Well... not really.

Let me be clear, Bullock and Clooney are by no means bad in the film. Their performances are very good, they portray different reactions to this unthinkable situation and those reactions fit perfectly with their personalities and their experience. Obviously Bullock, having this as her first time is going to be exasperated. Of course we're going to get frustrated with her because of her crippling fear of being out in space alone because, we're not in that situation.

And of course Clooney is going to have this calm and collect reaction because he's had the most experience. And the two really do play off each other well.

I am by no means saying that these two gave a bad performance. For being the only important people in the movie, they really carry it.

But for a 90 minute movie that is obviously more about the visuals and less about these characters, I'm not going to rave about their performances. In comparison with the other great performances that year, 12 Years a Slave, Wolf of Wallstreet, American Hustle, this movie, it doesn't surprise me that the awards it won were all about the visuals and not the performances.

And that's not a horrible thing. If the movie was clear about what the purpose was, which Gravity was, I shouldn't discredit it for what it really was. A well acted and incredibly gorgeous looking movie.

The thing that I was happy to come out of this movie saying was that I still thought this movie was gorgeous and visually stunning without seeing it in theaters. I thought I was going to be incredibly disappointed with this film because I didn't see it in theaters. I'm sure it was absolutely mind numbing in theaters but it still looked good on my friend's medium sized TV.

 I'm probably not going to watch Gravity again for a long while. There's not anything about the movie that says, I want to watch this movie again, and again, and again. But it was an experience. Maybe down the road when I get a really good TV with a pair of really good surround sound speakers, I might put in Gravity again and go for a fun ride, but for now, I'm going to enjoy Gravity for what it was, tell you that if you haven't seen it, its worth at least one watch, and move on with my life. And I think that's okay. I'm not overselling this movie, I'm not saying it was bad, I'm just saying its an experience. Probably a one time experience, but an experience nonetheless.

On a slightly unrelated note, did it not feel to anybody else like the world was ending in this movie? Maybe its just the perspective and the absence of any scenes on Earth but its like every satellite orbiting Earth was going down, I get that there needed to be tension but damn Russia, you deciding to blow up your satellite with a missile kind of fucked everything up. Or at least that's what this movie made it seem like.

So those are my thoughts on Gravity. What did you think? Do you feel like you could watch this movie multiple times? I mean another good thing was the running time. I don't feel like it needed to be any longer than 90 minutes. Comment and Discuss below! Or shoot me a tweet @cmhaugen24 and follow me on Twitter to get movie news and reviews in the future.

I'll leave you with this. Taking the easy way out, here's the honest trailer. Enjoy!