Reel Men - Indiana Jones and Iron Man

I FINALLY got myself back into a movie theatre this week. TWICE!

Finally caught up with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and FINALLY saw Iron Man.

I know, at this point, who hasn't seen them?

I'm one of those people that LOVES Indiana Jones, so I was excited, and I didn't even mind Shia LeBoeuf inserting himself as Indie's son by Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen, plucked from her comfortable post acting life to rejoin the series and get a nice big fat paycheque to round out the story).

But I'm pretty much in agreeance with the general concesus out there, that it was a good movie, but it should have been great. Especially after all that time since the last film, especially with Steven Spielberg directing, with Harrison Ford returning and George Lucas behind the film (though I don't think Lucas is all that great sometimes and is super simplistic to a literal degree).

I could totally buy the whole Crystal Skull thing and the ending but it felt like a series of good set pieces that flowed one after another but by the end of the film, it still did not feel like one complete movie.

Cate Blanchett was awesome in an underwritten role. (At the end when she "gains" all that knowledge, it was like... that's it?)

Meanwhile, when did Robert Downey Jr. become so hot? I always liked him as an actor but never really thought of him THAT way. In fact, at some point during the movie, I was like, wait, wasn't he in Ally McBeal at some point (and during the bad years), boy has he sure pulled himself back up!

I'm not a comic book fan and I don't know much about Iron Man but it was a great solid film, and though Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow were slightly underused, I'm assuming it's all set up for the next film (that and the Samuel L. Jackson part at the very end probably was a good tip off of that. The hords of money it made would probably tip off to an obvious sequel too).

I'm glad that visually, the film looked crisp and stunning and not like the CGI crap that a lot of other high budget movies have had that still looks obviously computerized.

Meanwhile, there weren't enough trap doors and other secret passages in the scenics for Indy.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull = B or 7.5/10
Iron Man= A- or 9/10