Iron Man 2 and Super 8 Movie Review

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Yes, I know this movie doesn't fit into the "You Gotta See This" type of category that most of the other films I've seen do. Quite frankly, it's on the list because I never saw it before. 

The first Iron Man was a great blockbuster that got the whole Avengers craze off and pretty much resurrected the career of Robert Downey Jr. Downey has become the embodiment of Tony Stark, the multimillionaire, playboy mogul of Stark Enterprises who moonlights as a super hero.

The second installment of the franchise to me felt a bit bland. Downey was great as usual, but the storyline really lacked, and the villain (Mickey Rourke) wasn't very memorable. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) was a better character. A glaring and distracting gripe about the film was not having Terrence Howard reprise his role as Lt. Rhodes/War Machine. Although Don Cheadle is a formidable replacement, he didn't seem to fit it. Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) played the Lex Luther type of villain that has no power but rather imposes will.

As you'd expect, the action was superb, the fighting was good too, but the movie just suffered from being boring and kind of all over the place. 

IMDB - 7.1/10

TheSIBandGuy - 2/5

Super 8 (2011)

Super 8 is a really cool movie because it is a throwback to the early Spielberg of the 70s and 80s. Director J.J. Abrams did a fantastic job of capturing the ominous almost whimsical but emotive presence that classics like E.T., Close Encounters, and Jaws have. 

Using predominantly a cast of kids, they play their roles wonderfully as the curious and adventuresome protagonists of the story. The key characters are: Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney), Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning), and Jackson Lamb (Kyle Chandler). 

This is Courtney's first movie and you'd never guess it as he plays the leader of his group of friends. Fanning as is her sister, a great actress. I honestly can't believe how big she's gotten, I thought she was still a little kid, nevertheless, she's going to break out in a big way.

The main plot of the movie is the kids making a zombie film. They each have assigned roles: director, cameraman, makeup, actor, actress, etc. They film their tale with an 8MM camera aka a Super 8, which was a pretty standard home camera to have in the 70s and 80s. 

While filming an important scene of their movie something terrible happens in the background and they get it all on film while being in danger themselves. This kicks off the events of the rest of the movie (NO SPOILERS). This movie is best viewed while being in suspense.

Super 8 has a few small plot holes mixed throughout, but it is nothing major enough to lessen the movie. I'd have to say a lot of people did not enjoy the movie because they were unaware of the context and background of which it was made and were expecting a crazy monster action flick. That's not the case here, it serves to be a fun movie that pays homage to some we already love. Check it out for yourself and see if you can notice any of these similarities. 

IMDB - 7.2

TheSIBandGuy - 4/5

I chose to group these two movies together because they were both supposed to be big summer blockbusters when they hit theaters, and yet failed the hype in certain ways. One was about robots and machines while the other was the "monster" movie. Iron Man 2 failed to deliver the punch of the first one and Super 8 failed to deliver the monster movie people were looking for. However, from a film standpoint, Super 8 was all around a better movie in my opinion.