Is it just me, or did "Iron Man 2" kind of suck?

Before anyone assumes that I'm exaggerating here, take note of the words "kind of" in that headline. We're not talking about "X-3" or "Spider-Man 3" epic suck here, but think about it: Either in comparison to the wildly entertaining original movie or just on its own as the flick to launch this summer, "Iron Man 2" was for the most part a big disappointment.

Granted, it certainly starts off well enough. Tony Stark is just as brashly fun as we remember him at the Stark Expo, and the good stuff keeps building until the Grand Prix de Monaco, which is one of the best superhero set pieces in recent years and certainly a grand entrance for Whiplash, the ubercool villain played by Mickey Rourke.

Which just makes it that much more of a shame that, from that point on, the movie just pretty much completely fizzles out. It really goes nowhere, and what we get, rather amazingly, is a placesetter. Now, an extremely flashy placesetter at that, but why in the world should the the world's coolest superhero have to fulfill that role for anyone, be it Thor, Captain America, the Avengers or even his own next movie? Sheesh.

The real travesty in that almost complete letdown in the story department is that the cast - new and old - is pretty uniformly first-rate. Downey is if anything even funnier than he was in the original - no small feat - and he and Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts have quickly developed the kind of naturally witty give and take that is sorely missing from the vast majority of what passes for romantic comedies these days. I still see no need to have replaced Terrence Howard - a definite fave around here - with Don Cheadle here, but he certainly works too as both Rhoady and the War Machine.

And as far as villains go, Mickey Rourke makes a bigger impression as Whiplash than any big bad since Alfred Molina's Doc Oc, and like Molina, he menaces at least as much with his words as he does with those electrifying arms. Combined with Sam Rockwell, who just hams it up as weapons man Justin Hammer, pretty much the anti-Tony in every way, they make a pretty sensational dastardly duo once they join forces.

But with all that going for it, how in the world did director Jon Favreau and screenwriter Justin Theroux manage to deliver such a dud storywise? Be warned: If you haven't seen "Iron Man 2" yet and want to (and I would certainly never tell anyone not to), you probably shouldn't read any further today, because I really can't get into my real beefs with "Iron Man 2" without getting pretty specific from here on out.

OK, work with me here, people. After Rourke's smashing intro as Whiplash in Monaco, what's the most exciting thing that happens in the rest of "Iron Man 2"? The real peril for our hero doesn't come during the middle stretch from Whiplash, but instead from the palladium that is slowly killing him at the same time that it superpowers him. But how does Tony go about finding a replacement? Well, after tinkering around a bit in his lab (not being a gadget guy, easily my least favorite of any "Iron Man" tale), Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury simply GIVES HIM THE NEW ELEMENT, or at least what he needs to discover it. Where in the world is the fun or any kind of intrigue in all that?

But the real letdown of "Iron Man 2" has to be the finale, so once again be warned, don't read this if you haven't seen the flick yet. OK, think about it. What happens after Whiplash dupes Hammer (an amazingly easy feat) and unleashes his deadly army of drones at Stark Expo? After a "battle" that lasts maybe a minute or two tops, Tony and Rhoady dispense of them all with seemingly little to no trouble at all. That, however, is just placesetting for the arrival of Whiplash in his own suit of ultrabad armor, right? Nope. Whiplash does look like one bad MF armored out, but Tony and Rhoady, in one of the the silliest Wonder Twins-esque superhero moments ever, take him out almost instantly. Again, where in the world is the fun in that?

In the end, that sums up the real downfall of "Iron Man 2" for me: Though it brought plenty of funny, the filmmakers seem to have forgotten that the root word of that is fun. And lest anyone reading this think I'm simply a curmudgeon who doesn't like superhero flicks, you're at least partly right, because done right, I LOVE THEM. "Spider-Man 2" isn't just my favorite superhero movie, but just one of my favorite movies of all time in any category. And this year alone, though it made next to no money, "Kick-Ass" had all the fun spirit that "Iron Man 2" just squandered after its promising first 20 minutes or so.

And I read that Jon Favreau has his eyes already set firmly on an "Iron Man 3," with Mandarin as the big bad. Well, "Iron Man 2" certainly had to be a setup for something, so I'll give him another chance when that inevitably rolls around, and will be hoping it's a whole lot better than the mixed bag he came up with this time. Peace out.

I knew it! Sam Raimi finally comes clean about "Spider-Man 3"

Somewhere deep in my mind I know that "Spider-Man 3" really wasn't the worst movie I've seen in the last 10 years or so. But it was just about the worst movie-going experience, which for me means pretty much the same thing.

Someone of my age should probably just give up on going to midnight movies altogether, but after the magic that was "Spider-Man 2" (still my favorite superhero flick), I was just thoroughly geeked up for the third chapter, as were the several hundred people who lined up outside our best local multiplex to watch it at the witching hour.

And, though I can't be sure, I'd have to imagine that most of those people were just as disappointed as I was as we made the drive home two-plus very long, boring hours later. It wasn't just that there were too many villians, the most-often heard complaint about "Spider-Man 3," though lack of focus was certainly a problem. Much more than that, it was really just a lack of spirit. Could the man who delivered the blissfully fun "Evil Dead" movies and the great baseball flick "For Love of the Game," among other movies, really spit out something so completely lifeless.

Well now, only about two years or so too late, it seems that even Sam Raimi himself is willing to admit just how bad "Spider-Man 3" was.

In the print edition of DVD & Blu-ray Review, he finally admitted what we all know: "I think having so many villains detracted from the experience. I would agree with the criticism."

More importantly, Raimi claims to have learned (or, I guess, re-learned) some lessons while making this year's best horror film and, next to Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds," the second-funnest movie I've seen all year, "Drag Me to Hell." Seriously, if you missed that one in theaters, it's out on DVD this week, and I can recommend it for anyone with a strong stomach who remembers the days when Raimi's movie used to be just wickedly funny. Here's what he said he learned from the experience:

"I think I've learned about the importance of getting to the point and the importance of having limitations, and I'm hoping to take that into a production where I'm actually allowed to explore with more of the tools to pull it off with a little more splendour. I hope I don't lose that edge that I've just found. That would be my approach to Spider-Man 4: to get back to the basics."

Call it "edge," "back to basics" or whatever you want to, but here's hoping he can hold on to it. A look at his IMDB slate shows that, along with just a ton of producing gigs "in development," he's still listed as directing three flicks, "Warcraft," "Spider-Man 4" and - scheduled to somehow come out before either of those - another "Evil Dead" movie for next year, penned by Mr. Raimi himself. If that actually happens (and this is the first I've heard about it), it would be the real test of whether or not the old Sam Raimi is back to stay.

Except for that and before I finally set off to see "Where the Wild Things Are," all I have is the trailer for "Serious Moonlight." It looks like nothing I would ever want to see, but since it was written by the late Adrienne Shelly (actress and writer of "Waitress," among other flicks), directed by veryfunnylady Cheryl Hines at at least co-stars Kristen Bell, maybe I'll give it a chance when it comes out Dec. 4. Anyways, have a great weekend, and if you've seen "Where the Wild Things Are," please feel free to share your thoughts about it, as I hopefully will tomorrow. Peace out.

Raimi's trip to "Hell" is a thoroughly disgusting delight

Going in to the great movie showdown that this weekend promised, I had two questions: Which movie would I prefer, Pixar's "Up" or Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell," and how in the world did Raimi's movie end up with less than a R rating?

Well, after having seen them both, I can definitively answer the first query: While I liked and more so admired "Up," Raimi's return to horror is the most fun I've had at the movies this year (edging out by a nose "Star Trek.")

As to the second, however, I still have no idea, because as any fans of "Evil Dead" would have been hoping, this flick is as juvenilely, eerily and blissfully disgusting as you could possibly expect. And give Raimi credit: With the most dead-on descriptive movie title since "Snakes on a Plane," there really shouldn't be anyone who goes into this one expecting anything less.

I'm not sure why, since they are such a natural combo, but humor and horror have been a very difficult concoction to blend in satisfying form in recent years. James Gunn did a fine job with "Slither" (did anyone else see that?) and Edgar Wright and co. do even better, but with both of these the laughs come first, whereas Raimi at his best, which he very nearly is here, delivers classic horror and finds the dark laughs within it. A litmus test: If seeing Alison Lohman stalk her pet with a kitchen knife as she coos "here kitty kitty" doesn't make you laugh, this movie isn't for you.

The movie opens with a great set piece that establishes immediately (in case the title left you with any doubt) what you're in store for. Two Hispanic parents take their cursed child to a healer of sorts. It seems the youngun has stolen a gypsy's necklace, never something I'd recommend, and, well, as you can probably imagine he doesn't fare too well from there.

It seems that the gypsies aren't a group of people you want to cross, and I have to confess that on a B-movie horror level, that just works for me. I think of myself as a solidly nonracist person, but if there's a chink in that armor, gypsies are it, because I once tried to sleep on a Eurorail train and had no less than four gypsy urchins come into my car and try to steal all of my belongings. Does that mean all gypsies are evil? Of course not. But it does, if suspending my nagging sensibilities, make me very susceptible to believing for about 90 minutes or so that they would be capable of unleashing something as nasty as the Lamia curse which, believe me, you don't want to get.

In Raimi's world, the star is Christine Brown, a very game Alison Lohman. Young Ellen Page was originally set to submit herself to this hell, but either chickened out (which I'd perfectly understand) or simply passed. What Lohman, who I had never seen in a movie before (but heard in "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind") brings to this schlockfest, along with a willingness to go through all kind of nastiness, is a nagging optimism that although you suspect is woefully misplaced, is enough to keep you playing Raimi's game until the end.

Her big mistake? Lohman's Christine, an ambitious bank loan officer (is there a more evil sort in the real world?), turns down an old lady for a third extension on her mortgage. And as anyone who knows even a bit about this flick knows, this was the wrong woman to piss off (and Lorna Raver, complete with an evil eye and secreting all kinds of squirm-inducing fluids even while she's still alive, is just the perfect choice.) From there, well, even if you think you know what's gonna happen, it's still a hell of a lot of fun going along for the ride.

And going in, I was fairly certain that funny guy and Mac pimper Justin Long was going to annoy me, but luckily he really doesn't have much to do here as Christine's supporting boyfriend (but his character's parents, played by Chelcie Ross and Molly Cheek, get the funniest scene of all, no small feat here.) What you need if you're gonna dine on this cheese buffet is someone who can lead you and Christine along, and Dileep Rao as psychic and all-around dark arts sensei Rham Jas certainly gets the job done. I don't want to give much else away, but Adriana Barraza is easily one of my favorite actresses (I even liked her quite a bit in the Jesus-wall-stain oddity "Henry Poole Is Here"), and when she turns up near the end of this flick (if you haven't walked out in disgust already) I guarantee you'll smile.

Raimi wraps it all up with an ending that's among his best, but what really makes this whole exercise so much fun is that, as with Raimi's "A Simple Plan," Christine, even as she makes mistake after mistake and suffers the requisite plagues for her misdeeds, is someone who - although more than a little greedy - we can easily all identify with.

In short, I loved just about every minute of Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell," and though it's not enough to erase the nightmare that was "Spider-Man 3" from my memory (really, nothing would be, because it truly was just that bad), it certainly shows Raimi's still capable of having a blast of wicked fun, and raises hopes that Spidey's fourth installment won't just suck hard. Peace out.

I'm way too old for midnight movies, but ...

If you happen to be going to see "The Dark Knight" at 12:01 Friday morning at the Grand cinemas in Macon, you might see me there, 'cause I just bought the golden ticket!

And despite my rather mixed recent history with midnight movies, I'm severely stoked about it. Since I've moved to Macon, I've only bothered to turn out for two midnight flicks before this one.

"The Simpsons Movie" was the perfect midnight entertainment for me, just a 90 minute riff that was funnier than the actual show has been in more than a few years, but I was one of about six people there, so you'd certainly have to call that a nonevent.

"Spider-Man 3," however, was an entirely different animal. It was showing on four midnight screens, and all shows were sold out. I had never seen so many geeks running wild in a movie theater. All of which created a great buzz for what turned out to be - if I may rather hypocritically engage in some of the very hyperbole I'm about to knock - easily one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It just made me want to cry as much as poor Peter Parker was made to, and not for anything possibly approaching the right reasons.

"Spider-Man 3" did, however (as you may well already know), have the biggest opening weekend of all time, just ahead of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." Here, courtesy of the great Boxofficemojo site, are the top 11 opening weekends of all time (yes, it goes to 11 so I could get in this year's two biggest openings):

1. Spider-Man 3: $151,116,516
2. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: $135,634,554
3. Shrek the Third: $121,629,270
4. Spider-Man: $114,844,116
5. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: $114,732,820
6. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith: $108,435,841
7. Shrek 2: $108,037,878
8. X-Men: The Last Stand: $102,750,665
9. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: $102,685,961
10. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: $100,137,835
11. Iron Man: $98,618,668

So-called box office experts (how in the world do I get that job?) are forecasting "The Dark Knight" to finish somewhere between "Spider-Man 3" and "Iron Man" (way to go out on a limb, guys!) Given the buzz about Heath Ledger and the just astoundingly positive reviews, however, I seriously think it might just have a shot of finishing north of $150 million to knock that awful flick out of the top spot (I don't, by the way, hate all "Spider-Man" flicks; the first one was perfectly pleasant, and if you force me to pick one I'll name "Spider-Man 2" as my favorite superhero flick of all time.)

And, assuming I'm as amped up as I think I'll be after watching "The Dark Knight," I'll try to put up a few hopefully coherent sentences very early tomorrow morning when I get home. I will, however, strive to avoid the hyperbole attained in the lead for this rather rapturous review that appeared at Cinemablend.com:

Forget the great things you’ve heard about The Dark Knight. No matter how lavish the praise or how determined the hyperbole, it’s all understatement. The Dark Knight is I suppose the greatest superhero movie ever made, but it’s so far beyond the limited men in tights genre that attempting to compare it with movies like Spider-Man, Superman, or even Batman Begins is almost laughable. Director Christopher Nolan’s film trumps everything and everyone, including himself. It’s not just the best superhero movie ever made, it’s one of the best movies ever to show up in a theater.

Wow. Here's hoping I like it nearly that much, and that you all do to. Peace out.

Ellen Page is headed to "Hell"

The big news this morning, of course, is that the writers' strike finally appears to be at an end.

Showrunners are back at work today, and writers are expected back Wednesday, but I have to ask: what exactly did they win? WGA west President Patric Verrone said the new deal is "... not all that we hoped for, and it is not all we deserve." Judging from what I see in TV commercials, however, I fear it will be even worse than that.

Why so pessimistic? I was fairly happy that this was all over until, on Sunday night, I saw a commercial for something on NBC with the word "Truth" in it (the full name escapes me, and I really just can't justify the effort to find out what it is). On this rather reprehensible program, a man seemed to be answering questions, while hooked up to a lie detector, with his marriage and, I presume, most of his life in the balance.

Does anyone see the entertainment value in this? And if so, could you please explain it to me? Here's hoping that the labor peace will lead to some actually scripted TV this fall, but I fear the breach will be too much to mend. I'm sure there's blame to go around, but just to pile on NBC a bit more, the network has already announced it is ending the pilot process used to woo advertisers, which can only be a bad sign.

But enough of that. Even if I fear it will be a phyrric victory at best, the writers are indeed headed back to work, and we should at least celebrate that. And, since nothing makes Mondays go down better than good news about beautiful women, that's all I'll have from here on out (at least until the very end.)

No "Heroes" until Fall

One show that will definitely return, but not until Fall, is NBC's "Heroes," which is seriously in need of a good season after the near-disaster that was Volume 2.

Hayden Panettiere, while at the Berlin Film Festival, spilled the beans to an AICN scribe that filming on season three is set to start in April, which would logically mean we wouldn't get anything new until the Fall.

Whenever it comes, I'll be ready for more. Season two was often a maddening one to me (what in the world was the point of adding the wonder twins Maya and Alejandro, for starters?), but the last few episodes really picked up steam and set up well for the next edition, so definitely bring it on.

Ellen Page is headed to "Hell"

And finally we get to the still-fairly-young lady of the moment. Lest anyone get suspicious that I write about Ms. Page so often simply because it leads to more traffic on this site (which it certainly does), you'll have to trust me that that's not it.

I've seen "Juno" twice now, and it's simply a charming little movie, and mostly thanks to Page's work in the lead role. It's not the best movie of 2007, an honor that I'd split between "No Country for Old Men" and "Ratatouille," but I would call it just about the most fun flick of the year, and that's good enough for me.

And now Ellen Page is about to spread some of her good karma to someone who sorely needs it: Sam Raimi. No one (except for maybe M. Night Shymalan) is more in need of a satisfying flick than Raimi after the dour disaster that was "Spider-Man 3," and his next one, "Drag Me to Hell," is rapidly shaping up to be just the ticket.

All I know so far is that Ellen Page has just signed on to star in the horror flick and that it's described simply as "a morality tale about the unwitting recipient of a supernatural curse."

Raimi and his brother Ted, the team behind "Spidey 3," wrote the script for this one too, so here's hoping they indeed have a lot more fun when this begins shooting in March.

"Veronica Mars" gets Disney treatment

Speaking of "Heroes," Season 2 semi-regular Kristen Bell has just signed on for a Disney romantic comedy, not at all my cup of tea but noteworthy nonetheless.

In "When in Rome," also set to begin filming in March," Bell will play a successful real estate agent in New York City who can't find a lasting relationship (already more than bit hard to believe.) When her younger sister impulsively marries in Rome, she flies out for the wedding and, after picking up coins from a reputed "fountain of love," finds an overabundance of suitors waiting for her back home.

Like I said, sounds like a whole lot of meh to me, but don't blame the messenger.

"Ratatouille" cleans up at Annies

And speaking of "Ratatouille," Brad Bird's Pixar flick won a leading 11 Annies (by my best estimate) at Friday's ceremony, so a hearty huzzah to that.

Along with best picture, best writing and best directing, it also scored the voice work prize for Ian Holm (though I would have given the honor to either fellow "Ratatouille" nominee Janeane Garofalo or the somehow-snubbed completely Peter O'Toole.) And while we're at it, congrats too to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" vet Seth Green, a winner for best director of a TV show for the sublime "Robot Chicken."

And why not wrap this up with a look at Pixar's next summer offering, "Wall-E"? I still have doubts that this largely dialogue-free flick will work, but just a look at Wall-E's eyes is enough to give me hope. Enjoy the trailer, and have an entirely bearable Monday. Peace out.

Sam Raimi's going to "Hell," and I'm definitely following

Though I guess you really can't call Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man 3" the worst movie of this year, I can definitely say it was my most disappointing. After turning out for a midnight screening (which I'm gonna do again tonight for Dewey Cox, but more on that later), I was just thoroughly let down.

The biggest problem, from my perspective, was that Raimi had clearly just stopped having any fun with the "Spider-Man" saga. About halfway through I couldn't help thinking that it's high time for him to direct, not just produce, a good, old-fashioned horror movie. And now, thankfully, that appears to be happening.

It seems Raimi's next project will be "Drag Me to Hell," a supernatural thriller he wrote with his brother, Ivan Raimi. (Yes, I realize that means it's the same writing team behind "Spider-Man 3," but also the duo that came up with both "Army of Darkness" and "Darkman," so take heart.)

The only plot detail leaked so far is that it's about the unwitting recipient of a supernatural curse, and the flick will go into production early next year.

Here's what Rob Tapert, whose Ghost House studio is financing the project, had to say about Raimi's change of pace: "When one has done three very expensive movies, they get used to eating caviar. Sam will have to ponder what it means to come down from the mountaintop for a moment."

As long as whatever he comes up with just tastes like a fun movie, that will be good enough for me. Welcome back, Sam.

Update on "The Hobbit"

Just a day or two after the big news came about MGM, New Line and Peter Jackson making not one but two "Hobbit" movies, Jackson is already bowing out of the directing chair (for now, at least.)

Here's what Jackson's manager Ken Kamins told Hollywood Insider: "Peter won't be directing because he felt the fans have waited long enough for The Hobbit. (Well, he's certainly right about that.) It will take the better part of every day of the next four years to write, direct and produce two Hobbit films. Given his current obligations to both The Lovely Bones and Tintin, waiting for Peter, Fran, and Phillippa to write, direct and produce The Hobbit would require the fans wait even longer."

Which, of course, would open the door wide open for any number of very talented directors to move in. The Variety article about Sam Raimi's horror flick implied that he is already the anointed one, but I'm personally still holding out hope for Alfonso Cuaron, though he already has three (three!?!?) announced directing credits listed at the IMDB for 2009: México '68, The Memory of Running and The History of Love. (I have to imagine he'd gladly give all these up to take the reins of "The Hobbit.") Whoever lands this will have a hot property on their hands, so definitely stay tuned, 'cause a decision is expected by early next year.

Bold move, guys: Vatican slams 'His Dark Materials'

Though I still fairly regularly attend Catholic church services, it pains me to admit I wasn't at all surprised to see the Vatican come out today with a rather pathetic statement about the box office numbers for "The Golden Compass."

Predicting that New Line will bail on completing the trilogy (which I fear will happen too), the Vatican's l'Osservatore Romano newspaper called "Compass" the "Most anti-Christmas film possible" and said that “... In (Phillip) Pullman’s world, hope simply does not exist, because there is no salvation but only personal, individualistic capacity to control the situation and dominate events.”

Having not read the entire trilogy yet I'll give them a pass on the latter part, but what in the world does "The Golden Compass" even have to do with Christmas at all, and what movie were these guys watching? (I have a rather strong suspicion they didn't bother to watch it at all.) If I had any complaints about the movie (which I did, though I kind of enjoyed it too), it's that the movie was defanged of most of Pullman's most overt anti-Christianity sentiment, not that it was spreading it around to corrupt all the kiddies.

And, I think the greater point here is that it is an act of fairly extreme cowardice that the Vatican let its American attack dog, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, do all the talking until it had the box office totals to hide behind. If anything, I think New Line was doomed from the start in making such a costly movie from a book that didn't have quite the following of a "Lord of the Rings," but seeing ridiculous statements like this just makes me hope all the more that it will bankroll the next two chapters in this potentially thrilling trilogy. 'Nuff said.

Free "Jackass"? Yes, please!

Actually, I haven't had time to take in "Jackass 2.5" yet, but once I do, I and anyone else who cares to can apparently do so for free now, and huzzah to that. When I went to the site, it said you had to download something called "Microsoft Silverlight" and go through some "silly registration process," but I'd have to think those will be small hurdles to jump for more jackassery from Johnny and the boys. To download the movie, click here. Methinks I just might try and do so at work later today (rather than, of course, doing any actual work.)

More ridiculous Dewey Cox swag

OK, I can now admit that I've officially been hoodwinked by joining the "Dewey Cox Fan Club."

After already getting a pair of tighty-whities supposedly autographed on the backside by Dewey himself, I found another envelope from Columbia in my mailbox when I got home last night. It was awfully thin, but I still held out hope that it was a copy of the soundtrack or something equally cool.

Of course not. What it was this time, which I've done the service of photographing for anyone who actually bothers to read this, is supposedly a clump of Dewey's chest hair (given the source, I was frankly more than a little surprised they didn't say it was hair from some other region of his body.)

I do have to say I laughed a lot harder this time than I did at the underwear, and since I'm going to a midnight screening tonight, I guess this rather twisted marketing scheme worked (though I'm fairly certain I would have bitten without it.) Bring it on!

Six minutes of "The Dark Knight"?

I figure anyone who made it this far deserves a reward, so please enjoy this YouTube clip that purports to be a rather horribly bootlegged clip of the Joker's henchmen robbing a Gotham bank, which I found over at the great Iwatchstuff.com (though the poster rather cryptically called it "My Safari Trip to Antarctica.") I'd imagine the real test of the veracity of this clip will be how long it lasts before the bigwigs order it removed, so I'll try and keep my eyes on it to see if it becomes a dead link. Until then, enjoy, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.