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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 03 May 2008

Iron Man is the first major blockbuster of the American summer.  After a few months of mediocre releases, we’re finally going to be treated to something big.  Let me point out that not all of these mass-marketed movies will be good.  I think some of them will stink.  Still, there’s something exciting about sitting in a packed cinema with a sense of anticipation.  It’s a better atmosphere than sitting alone in a movie theatre while watching a movie that no one cares about (and that’s happened to me a few times this year already).

Iron Man is based on the comic book of the same name.  I haven’t read it nor have I read any of the other 100,000 comics that have been adapted into a movie in the last decade.  Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with Iron Man – the first three-quarters of the film is spent developing his character.  I know that sounds like a long time but it’s not a bad thing.  The purpose of this movie is to show us how Iron Man was created. 

Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark.  He’s the owner of a weapons company called Stark Industries.  He makes the arms that are used by the U.S. military in their operations overseas.  There’s a scene where is grilled by a female news reporter on how he can live with himself, knowing that he is profiteering from wars and making missiles that kill thousands of people.  Tony doesn’t care.  There’s a market for his products and he is prepared to make money.

Stark’s attitude changes when he his kidnapped in Afghanistan whilst promoting his latest weapon, the Jericho.  He is taken to a bunker in an underground cave and is given an ultimatum.  He will be released but only if he can show them how to make a Jericho.  He agrees but has something else in mind.  Locked in a room with all the technology he wants, Starks makes a suit made of very strong iron.  He slips it on and breaks out of the cave.  When the guards try to shoot him down, the suit repels the bullets.  Ultimately, he finds his freedom and returns home to the United States.

At a press conference, Stark announces that he’ll be getting out of the weapons business.  He realises the gravity of what he has done over the years and the many innocent lives which have been lost.  Stark wants to help people instead of putting them in harms way.  This doesn’t sit well with the CEO of Stark Industries, Obadiah Stane (Bridges), who is worried about the ramifications of such a rash decision.  He knows that shareholders won’t be happy.  Stark doesn’t care however.  All he’s thinking about is designing an even better Iron Man suit – one that will allow him to fly around and help save those in trouble.

Yep, the film is worth recommending.  The highlight is the performance of Robert Downey Jr.  He gives the title character the right mix of seriousness and sarcasm.  He also gets all the laughs.  With a different actor in the role, I don’t think the film would have been as good.  Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow all have supporting roles but they don’t do a lot.

The action scenes are well put together and for the most part, the story was interesting.  There was easily enough material to keep my attention for 2 hours.  The better scenes are those where Downey Jr. develops his cool suit is his large basement.  The weaker scenes are those focusing on the bad guys and their evil doing.  When Robert Downey Jr. isn’t on screen, the film ain’t as good.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 17 April 2008

I have to be really careful with films that I love.  If I talk up a movie too much, then people’s expectations are raised and they may not enjoy it (at least to the same level that I did).  I didn’t know a lot about Forgetting Sarah Marshall before I saw it.  I thought it was going to be another standard, low-brow comedy.  Now that I’ve seen it, my opinions have completely changed.  This will probably be the best romantic comedy of the year.

The film was written by 28-year-old Peter Segel.  When you look at his resume, you’ll see that Segel is a guy who has been acting for a long time but hasn’t found his big break.  He’s had small roles in films such as Can’t Hardly Wait, Dead Man On Campus and Knocked Up.  For the last 4 years, he’s been a feature actor in the television series How I Met Your Mother.

In 2008, the time has come for Peter Segel to shine.  He’s written his own script and put himself in the leading role.  Putting their money behind him and producers Judd Apatow and Shauna Robertson, the same two people behind Superbad, Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin.  I guess they liked his script and it’s not hard to see why.

Segel plays Peter Bretter, a music composer who works on a high-profile TV show called “Crime Scene: Scene Of The Crime.”  His long-time girlfriend is Sarah Marshall, the star of the show.  It may sound strange that a big name actress is dating a nerdy looking guy like Peter but there you go.  There’s hope for some of us yet.

Bad times are ahead however.  Sarah tells Peter that’s she breaking up with him.  She’s fallen in love with a rock musician named Aldous Snow (Brand).  The “break up” scene is actually quite funny (as strange as that sounds).  Peter is a blubbering mess for a few days and just can’t stop crying.  On the advice of a friend, he decides to go on a spur of the moment holiday to Hawaii to help clear his head.

It seems that fate is conspiring against Peter.  When he arrives at his beach-side hotel, he finds that Sarah is also there on holiday.  He doesn’t want to look like he’s running away so he decides to continue on with his holiday.  Unfortunately, watching her have fun with her new boyfriend only seems to make things more difficult.  She pops up everywhere he goes and he can’t get her out of his head.

It’s not all bad though.  HelHelping Peter out is a kind hotel employee named Rachel Jansen (Kunis).  She too is coming off a bad break-up and she starts spending time with Peter to make him feel better.  They go out for drinks and to a relaxing beach party.  Is something developing between them?  Peter isn’t quite sure.

In a lot of ways, this film reminded me of There’s Something About Mary.  The leading character is a vulnerable male and there are quite a few gross-out moments that will catch you off guard.  Within the first few minutes, you’ll see why the movie received an MA rating in Australia.  I liked the edginess and the way in which certain scenes (such as the sex between with the newly wed couple) are thrown in with utter randomness.  You don’t know what to expect next.

Backed with some memorable supporting characters, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a likeable film that deserves to be seen by as many people as possible.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 28 April 2008

A creative serial killer is on the loose.  He kidnaps people, ties them up and then shows them live on a website called killwithme.com.  The “mechanism” that will ultimately kill the victim is linked to the webpage counter.  In other words, the more people that visit the website, the quicker the poor person will die.  It’s all very nasty.

Would you visit the website if it happened in real life?  The writers of the film think that a lot of people would.  More kidnappings take place and the killings start getting faster and faster.  He is preying on the curiosity of the general public.  He knows they can’t help themselves and in a way, they are all accomplices and witnesses to each death.

Helping investigate the case is FBI Agent Jennifer Marsh (Lane).  She’s part of their cyber division and her usual day job is to investigate fraudsters who are trying to rip people off over the internet.  She’s never come anything like killwithme.com before.  All her usual tricks to try to shut down the website don’t work.  The guy who came up with this knows what he’s doing and is always one step ahead of the authorities.

I won’t talk too much more about the plot.  I’d hate to give anything away before you’ve had the chance to see it.  It may sound interesting but for the most part, it’s very disappointing.  Nothing happens at all in the opening half hour – there’s too much time wasted on character development and pointless scenes.  When the serial killer enters the picture, the film makes the strange decision to show who he is.  That took out a lot of the intrigue as far as I was concerned.

With each passing minute, the movie becomes less believable.  There are some perplexing twists that are too silly to believe.  It made me realise that this isn’t an intelligent thriller but rather a dumb popcorn movie where you have to leave your brain at home.  Further, what’s up the quasi-romance element with Diane Lane and Billy Burke (who plays a fellow detective)?  Did we really need this?  What point did it serve?

If you still want to see this film, I’ll throw it one final warning – it is quite gruesome in places.  Watching the victims get killed in bizarre fashion reminded me a lot of the Saw movies.  It’s rated MA in Australia for its strong violence and themes.  Give it a miss.  

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 15 April 2008

There’s a lot to like about The Painted Veil.  What impressed me most was the complexity of the characters.  It comes as no surprise that this has been adapted from a highly regarded novel.  The late W. Somerset Maugham (The Razor’s Edge) wrote the book and Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia) has condensed it into a two hour screenplay.

Set in the 1920s, the story begins in London.  Kitty Garstin (Watts) is a young woman who yearns to escape her overbearing parents.  They want her to find a husband and have threatened to cut her off financially unless she does so soon.  Kitty doesn’t want to marry unless she meets a man that she truly loves.  It sounds like something out of a Jane Austen novel, doesn’t it?

At a social gathering, Kitty meets a scientist named Dr. Walter Fane (Norton).  Fane is smitten with Kitty and the very next day, he asks her to be his wife.  A shocked Kitty sizes up the situation.  She can either marry this man she knows nothing about or risk living the rest of her life with her domineering family.  Kitty takes a chance and accepts his proposal.

In turns out that Kitty and Walter are as different as chalk and cheese.  Walter is a workaholic - obsessed with his study of infectious diseases.  He is always very serious and never seems to have time to do anything fun.  Kitty, on the other hand, loves to socialise.  She tries to get Walter out and about but he is very unwilling.  She feels trapped in a loveless marriage.

In search of something to keep her spirit alive, Kitty has an affair with a high-profile diplomat (Schreiber).  Walter discovers their secret and reacts with bitterness.  Instead of granting her request and giving her a divorce, Walter volunteers their services to help with a cholera outbreak in a remote Chinese village.  They will live in the middle of nowhere and risk their lives to save a small group of non-English speaking strangers.  He wants Kitty to suffer for her infidelity.

Edward Norton and Naomi Watts deliver terrific performances.  You can sense the distain that they have for each other.  You’ll pick this up from the opening scenes which show them travelling through the Chinese countryside.  From the way they speak to each other, you know that things aren’t right.  They are as stubborn as each other and they hate to show any sign of weakness.  It’s a bizarre relationship but fascinating at the same time.

The director of the film is Australian John Curran (Praise).  It was Watts who suggested Curran for the project after they worked together in 2004’s We Don’t Live Here Anymore.  The production team looked all over China to find the right place to film the movie.  After getting all the necessary approvals from the China Film Bureau, they settled on a tiny village called Mei-tan-fu in Southern China.  It’s a beautiful setting. 

It’s taken a long time for The Painted Veil to reach Australia cinemas.  It was released in the United States way back in December 2006.  As a movie soundtrack fan, I’ve been looking forward to seeing the film since it won the Golden Globe for best score (music) in January 2007.  It has finally arrived and the wait has been worth it.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 22 April 2008

A 4-year-old girl has been abducted from her mother’s home in the middle of the night.  No one knows who took Amanda McCready or whether she is still alive.  The story has captured the attention of the Boston media who are giving it maximum coverage.  Journalists are camped outside her house and are impatiently waiting for any news.

Three days pass and Amanda’s aunt, Beatrice (Madigan), decides to bring in a private investigator.  She feels the police aren’t doing a good enough job.  Responding to an advertisement in the paper, Beatrice hires Patrick Kenzie (Affleck) and his girlfriend, Angie Gennaro (Monaghan).  Patrick and Angie are up front and admit that they don’t have the experience for such an important case.  Beatrice wants them anyway.  She feels that their friendships with locals in the area will help them sniff out information that the police have been unable to find.

Beatrice is right.  Within a day, Patrick and Angie start making breakthroughs.  They learn that Amanda’s mother, Helene (Ryan), has been trafficking drugs for some nasty individuals.  A couple of weeks ago, Helene and her boyfriend stole $130,000 from a powerful drug dealer named “Cheese”.  It looks like they’ve found a suspect and a motive.

If you think it’s a simple matter of “case closed” then think again.  There are a lot of twists to this tale.  Everything appears to be all wrapped up after about an hour but the story then goes off on a new tangent.  It’s a perfect film for people who are after some suspense and like to be kept guessing.

By major qualm with the movie is that I felt it too hard to believe (one of my most common criticisms).  Every time Patrick starts asking questions, people seem to open up and spill their guts.  Is it really that easy in real life to get information out of someone?  I also had issues with some of the big surprises at the very end.  Could this actually have happened?  I’ve got serious doubts.

My review probably won’t mean too much because Gone Baby Gone has been well reviewed by most other critics.  It also scores highly from the public on the Internet Movie Database.  I guess I just didn’t get it.  Amy Ryan picked up a number of major awards for her role as Amanda’s mother.  She also earned an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress but lost out to Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton).

It’s worth mentioning that the film marks the directorial debut of actor Ben Affleck (Good Will Hunting).  Affleck also wrote the screenplay with friend Aaron Stockard.  It’s based on a novel written by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River).  I think Affleck does an admirable job as first-time director.  His film will leave you asking questions of yourself.  Will you agree with the actions of certain characters?  Whilst I liked the ethical issues being explored, I can’t overlook my grievances with the story as a whole.