Iron Man
May 17, 2008
This summer, there are quite a few comic-book movies coming out.
- Iron Man (May 2)
- The Incredible Hulk (June 13)
- Hancock (July 2)
- Batman: The Dark Knight (July 18)
(Even though Hancock is not technically a comic-book adaptation, he is definitely a comic-book style superhero.)
I wasn’t even sure I was going to see Iron Man until I started hearing really good things about it — even from “serious” movie critics. Someone even speculated that the acting was Oscar-worthy. I went to see it this weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. Iron Man is an excellent start to a summer that will hopefully be filled with more good comic-book movies.
I did not read comic books much growing up, but I would include the stories they contain within my definition of myth. This type of story can be adapted reasonably well into a movie, especially with the advances of special-effects technology in the last few years. (Novels, on the other hand, do not seem to me to be as easy to adapt to film. There are lots of reason for this, and I hope to consider this in more detail in the future.) I still think it takes a lot of work to do it right: there are just so many ways these movies can go wrong! There’s always the danger that they will be ridiculously cheesy (like Batman 4, my vote for worst comic-book movie ever) or simply mindless action flicks (like X-Men 3). But all comic-book movies, because they deal with subjects beyond our everyday experiences, have the potential to instruct or inspire us in the same way as the great myths.