Ironman
Trailer
We begin with the next-in-line of Marvel Comics’ many film franchises, directed by Jon Favreau and starring the uber-cool Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark, aka ‘Ironman’. For anyone not familiar with the character or comic, Tony Stark is a wealthy weapons designer who develops a high-tech suit to first save his own life and then to fight crime, coping with inner demons such as alcoholism, relationship issues and (quite often) a dodgy moustache.
We are introduced to this playboy/tech genius at the beginning of the trailer, as he visits U.S. troops in Afghanistan (originally Vietnam in the comics) showing off some shiny new weaponry.
The trip ends badly though as Stark is injured in an attack and captured by generic-looking middle-eastern baddies.
He survives his injuries by making some glowing chest-plate thingy (shrapnel close to his heart you see) and eventually escapes his captors by creating a chunky suit of iron with flame throwers - a life support system that doubles as a weapon of destruction.
We then get glimpses and shots of characters, such as Jim Rhodes (played by Terrence Howard), Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts (a red-headed Gwyneth Paltrow), Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges looking like a militant Santa) as well as other things (including another giant iron-suit…perhaps a bad guy?) too quick to really notice. The trailer ends with Ironman (in a more high-tech red and yellow suit) flying and being chased by fighter planes.
This first trailer is more about introducing the character of Tony Stark and the ‘world’ he inhabits so is a bit light on story, but for fans of the comic this looks pretty much like a faithful adaptation - for the un-initiated though it might be just another big budget comicbook movie.
Beowulf
Trailer
Next up is a cg-animated film directed by Robert Zemeckis, and is based on the Old English Anglo-Saxon epic poem of ‘Beowulf’ - which recounts the tale of a young hero of the Northern Germanic tribe the ‘Geats’, who travels to the kingdom of Denmark to battle the monster ‘Grendel’; as well as Grendel’s mother and eventually (when Beowulf is king) a dragon.
The ‘internet exclusive’ (red band) trailer starts with Beowulf (voiced by Ray Winstone) as he sails to Denmark, looking for the monster he has heard stories about.
He meets Queen Wealhtheow (Robin Wright Penn) who tells him that others have come to kill the monster and failed. Beowulf declares that he will kill it, and then we hear screaming, which is presumably Grendel’s mother (Angelina Jolie) and then a bloody attack by a giant-but-energetic Grendel on the royal hall.
We also see Grendel’s mother herself, a naked femme fatale (with strategic gold body paint) and as we see Beowulf attacking the Grendel, shots of a dragon attack and so forth, we also hear Beowulf shouting. A lot.
This looks like an interesting but strange movie, a kind of cross-pollenation of other films such as Polar Express (which Zemeckis directed), Final Fantasy (the Spirits Within) and Shrek.
The current state of animation technology still hasn’t given us a computer-generated thespian that doesn’t look dead-eyed or slightly lifeless; and it’s also unusual that most of the characters look photo-realistically like the actors that are voicing them (Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich and so on) except for Beowulf himself, which seems to be an insult to Ray Winstone if anything.
Mirageman
Website
Mirageman is a superhero movie without the superpowers - that’s probably the easiest way to describe it. It’s a low-budget chilean Martial Arts film written and directed by Ernesto Diaz Espinoza; which stars (real life stuntman and Martial Artist) Marko Zaror as ‘Maco’, a young man who is orphaned in a vicious attack, leaving as his only family his severly traumatised younger brother.
Maco works as a bouncer in a strip club, spending all his free time visiting his brother who is institutionalised, but also training himself in the Martial Arts and seemingly to the peak of his physical fitness.
When he prevents a burglary and the rape of a news reporter, he finds himself a local media sensation and realises that he wants to continue fighting crime, developing a masked persona in order to do so: ‘Mirageman’.
The trailer (that is available on the official website) begins with Maco, showing the solitary existence he leads in Santiago, and going to visit his brother. We then see Maco training furiously, before witnessing a robbery late one night. He knocks out the burglar with a spinning kick to the head and - puts on the burglar’s mask then enters the house and takes care of the rest of the thieves. The woman he saves in the house turns out to be a news reporter, who recounts her rescue the next day on television. “He isn’t a man of steel” she reports, “He doesn’t climb walls like a spider…he is a real man, like you or me.”
Maco watches the news report, and later visits his brother, who has begun to show signs of improvement after hearing about the real hero on TV.
Maco decides to continue being a masked crimefighter, training even more vigorously and creating a (rather unfashionable looking) costume. He goes out looking for criminals and once he finds them, more often than not, kicks seven shades of hell out of them.
The film is a no-nonsense approach to a superhero action movie, having to forsake the sfx that a big budget would give rise to, and instead showing events in a hand-held documentary fashion; this gives the action a reality that would normally be broken by CG and wire-work.
The character of Maco could easily be a stereotypical anti-hero and violent vigilante, but instead is portrayed as being honest but not incredibly intelligent. The balance between comedy and tragedy seems to be handled well, and an unpretentious (super) hero movie would certainly be a nice change.
Mo Ali was born in a haunted hospital and has exceeded all expectations and kept breathing.
A digital artist, poet and writer, he needs to find some paid work before the inevitable apocalypse. To make matters worse he lives in Berkshire.