Take That! Snarky Movie Critic

I'm a fairly positive lurker. I mean, I have a lot of blogs and articles and networks that I like to regularly browse and read. AND  I almost never leave a digital comment, (unless you're my friend and i'm reading your blog). It's cuz I'm lazy. I mean, lookie my blog... Not exactly regular. In fact, when Angelina first started posting her blog on AnD, I would read an entry and then wait for it to appear on AnD to make a comment, because I never wanted to set up an account to make the comment on her blogwhatnot site. A lot of the time, I can just share my comments with my cat, or forward the link (and personal commentary) immediately over IM to a couple friends, and ONCE IN A WHILE - when WOW dancing manna or other awesome material appears - I post about it on my site, and I'm good.
I think I've made a handful of 'that was a really good post' type comments over time on blogs/sites i read on a weekly or daily basis (again, that are not friends' personal ones). But that is it. To recap the whole point of this paragraph: I almost never bother to leave a digital comment on some stranger's digital entry, whether it causes me interweb ecstasy (good), tears (good or bad), or diarrhea (bad, always bad).

So imagine my annoyance level when I read a Slate movie review... and clicked on a separate link to go to the linked forum... read the two other dissenting comments... and found them insufficient enough that i ended up creating an account (complete with surrendering an email to their data-mineable lists) TO CONTRADICT the critic's movie review.
Wow, and still so annoyed that now I'm posting to you guys about it.

So really, I overall agreed with the critic's review (WARNING: contains scene spoilers). The movie is fun and great, but not a masterpiece blend of summer special effects blockbuster AND biting social commentary. There are IronMan storyline updates from Vietnam era issues to current turbulent political climes (the Afghanistan terrorist wrinkle). But IronMan really is almost all about Robert Downey Jr and his charmingly perfect portrayal (the rest of the cast is good too). But then the critic spends a whole paragraph taking issue with the moral 'liteness' of this avowed summer blockbuster, and then proceeds to back up their point by recounting a memorable movie scene incorrectly. COMPLETELY ASS BACKWARDS. As if s/he complained about a scene where Robert Downey Jr looked horrible in that blue cocktail dress and Gwyneth Paltrow looked horrible in the Red and Yellow Iron Man suit. See bottom for specifics, but there are scene spoilers:

This is not 'An Inconvenient Truth' deep. This is not 'Syriana' or 'Thin Red Line' or 'Apocalypse Now' or some other example of the culturally / politically / emotionally important movies of our time. This is not a movie that would cause Dax to wax poetic about its moral implications.
And no one in the audience would be surprised. This is a suspend-your-disbelief and hang-onto-your-popcorn summer flick that has some scenes take place in Afghanistan. Not the Morgan Spurlock film that took place in Afghanistan.

But all that aside. When the critic takes issue with the film, makes a moral debate about it, and complains about his/her 'bitter taste' in their mouth... I expect - at worst - an oversensitive and extremely PC moral argument NOT based on the critic's ASS BACKWARDS MEMORY of the scene. Don't critics pound these out on their laptops as the credits roll on their sneak preview screening and they slurp the last of their diet coke? I expect them to have a better memory of the movie than someone like me, who checked out the latest fun popcorn flick on an officially-work-sanctioned hooky afternoon at the local megaplex movie theater. (It's work-related because we made the video game:) Yes, my job rocks!)

And ya, ya, ya. I'm really just excited because this snarky movie critic who is paid to write these reviews and bring in bigger-picture world-events totally just messed up so I GET TO BE SNARKY.

==================================
Exhibit A (SCENE SPOILER IN THIS SECTION):

Movie Critic With Alzheimer's: In one scene, the Iron Man confronts a group of Afghan villagers, unable to distinguish the civilians from the combatants. At once a Terminator-style readout appears on the inside of his mask, clearly labeling each civilian, and with surgical precision, he takes out all the bad guys, leaving the grateful good guys standing. It's a clever and viscerally satisfying gag that got a round of applause at the screening I attended—but it left me with a bitter aftertaste that lasted for the rest of the movie. How much collateral damage have we inflicted by trusting just such "smart" weapons to make moral decisions for their users?

Uh, HELLO. First of all: Iron Man runs around kicking bad guy ass. At one point, he turns around and faces a number of civilians, each held at gun point by their own bff terrorist bad guy. Iron Man is ABLE to distinguish the civilians from the bad guys, but he has to sheathe his weaponry before the bad guys start shooting the civvies.
While he does that obvious placation maneuver, his super cool, sexy hawt Iron Man suit targets all bad guys carrying guns, then paints big red X's over their faces (the vulnerable spot), and launches a round of mini-rockets/bullets that take out each and every Bad Guy. This wasn't a case where the "smart" weapon picked out Bad-Guys-With-Guns out of a crowd also filled with Good-Guys-With-Guns.
Anyway, if you're going to be snarky and debate this, then make sure you were watching it, and not preoccupied with a handful of popcorn.

Add a comment