Iron and Weed

The last two movies D and I saw in theatres were Iron Man (two weeks ago) and Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (last night). We had low expectations for both films, for different reasons, but ended up enjoying both of them quite a bit.

To its credit, Iron Man is much more grounded in reality than many other comic book adaptations. If you didn't know it was a Marvel property, you might actually think it was a pretty good science fiction movie--more RoboCop than Back to the Future, but with elements of both.

If you stay through the end credits, you'll see a somewhat gratuitous clip that sets up a sequel. Actually (spoiler alert), I have it on good authority that there is an actual Iron Man cameo in the upcoming Incredible Hulk movie. There have been in-jokes or name-checks in other live-action superhero movies, but this would be the first time that one character has actually appeared in another's movie. Call me a fanboy, but I love it when fictional worlds actually intersect.

On the other hand, Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay has virtually no basis in reality. It's quite entertaining for what it is, even if they repeated a few redneck gags from the first film and went way overboard with the political satire. If the first movie was Harold's show, this one was all about Kumar. A sequel seems inevitable, and while I have a hard time imagining where they go from here, I'm sure it will involve Neil Patrick Harris.

Coming up next: Indiana Jones, obviously. I have very little desire to see Speed Racer, which the Flick Filosopher describes thusly:

Imagine if the pod race in Star Wars Episode I was as bad as everyone said it was, and took itself twice as seriously, and went on for more than two hours. And then add a wiseass monkey and his sidekick, an obnoxious kid, on top. Stir, and scream. The Wachowski Brothers have taken the genius of their Matrix series, its ability to defy physics and make it work, and turned it into something it would be an insult to cartoons to call cartoonish.

I guess I already knew that from the awful trailers, but it's nice to have it confirmed.

~CKL