Sunday, May 2, 2010

35 Years of Summer Blockbusters - May 2nd



May 2, 2008 - 2 years ago "Iron Man" took the movie world by surprise. Another entry into, what some thought was the tired, comic book genre, Iron Man injected a sense of style and polish into the familiar super-hero story. Played pitch perfectly by Robert Downey Jr. and supporting actors Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow the film used high tech and qucik humor to give the story a hip modern feel. Director John Favreau was the perfect choice to bring Iron Man to the big screen. He does not sacrifice story for action and always aims to make everything seem real, yet bigger than life, at the same time. He likes to combine old fashioned visual effects with CGI in a way that blends the two seamlessly. A great example of this is the under rated "Zathura".

Iron-Man opened to rave reviews and big box office. It made $102 million in it's first 3 days and was playing on 4,105 screens. It proceeded to make $318 million during its US run. It beat out the fourth Indiana Jones installment but could not top The Dark Knight. It ranks as the second highest grossing film of 2008 and 24th on the list of all time money makers. Expect it to move down a couple of notches after this summer.

I originally saw Iron Man at the Metreon Theatre on opening day.
At the Movie House rating ***1/2 stars




May 2, 2003 - 7 years ago. "X2: X-Men United" opened in 3,741 theatres and took in $85 million in it's first three days. Hailed by critics and fans as a much better movie than the original, this sequel took in $214 mill during its U.S. run, besting the first X-Men film by $57 mil.

Featuring the full returning cast plus some new mutants, the story was well conceived and executed. It featured a better class of bad guys, both human and mutants, to pose a real threat to our heroes.
I originally saw X2 at a theatre outside Cleveland Ohio on May 4th.
At the Movie House rating *** stars

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