Movie Reviews - The Hulk and Iron Man

A few weeks ago, Jeremiah's grandpa called us up because he had found out that The Incredible Hulk was coming to the theatres and he thought that it would be really fun to go see it with Jeremiah.

When Jeremiah was only 2 or 3 years old, Grandpa Frazier would chase him around the house and Jeremiah would scream and laugh. Then Grandma Frazier bought Jeremiah "Hulk Muscles" (imagine arm floaties for the pool but they look like muscles and are green) and Jeremiah would then chase Grandpa around the house.

Grandpa thought it would bring back good memories sharing this movie with Miah. So we set a date of last Thrusday (6/26/08) to go down to their place, have some dinner, and watch the movie.

Now, Jeremiah and especially I are not big comic book fans (I really can't stand the Spiderman movies) so we weren't too excited to see the actual movie; we were more so going to spend time with the grandparents. But we had heard good reviews about the movie and that Edward Norton was staring in it (I really like him as an actor).

So after work, we drove down to their house and went out to KFC for dinner. Right at the end of dinner, I managed to spill my full glass of water all over my right pant leg and a little in my crotch. Just what I needed. We got back in the car and drove a few minutes to the local mall where the movie was playing.

Now, I really knew nothing about The Hulk other than I knew it was an ordinary guy who had something go wrong and now gets really big and green when he gets angry. The movie didn't spend too much time on how this guy turned into the Hulk, but spent a lot of time letting you get to know him as a person as well as see him fight the bad guy.

We both really enjoyed the movie. The special effects were really good (although, I don't think the grandparents liked it very much - they kept saying that that's not how they remembered the Hulk - especially as it's been quite a few years since they last went to see a movie in the theatre and it was Lord of the Rings that they saw and that was too much for them then). I hate it when you can tell that the images are CG, but they did a really good job on this one. The story was good and we both really liked that you got to develop more of an emotional attachment to the character instead of it just being an action movie.

Of course, they left it open for a sequel and Stan Lee (the creator) made a special appearance in the movie (did you see him?).

I would recommend this movie even if you aren't big on Comic Book-themed movies. It really was good and fun to see on the big screen.

Now, this week, I haven't been feeling too great (bad headaches and just plain exhausted). I spent most of Friday inside on the couch just trying to recover. But I really felt like I needed to get out on Friday night and just do something.

Jeremiah suggested going to see Iron Man as he had heard from a lot of people that it was a really good movie (and some of those reviews came from people who also don't like comic books). He had been wanting to see it before it left the theatres and you could tell it was almost on it's way out (you could really tell when you were watching the previews before it came on that all the movies it was "previewing" were ones that you had either already seen or were ones that were playing in the room right next to you).

So we decided to go see it even though we really knew nothing about the story of this one.

This movie was way cool. I really enjoyed it (I think even a little more than The Hulk). The special effects were amazing, the story was good, and there was good humor in it that didn't insult your intelligence. I really recommend this movie. We both really enjoyed it and had a good conversation about it afterwards. This one too is set up for a sequel as well (stay for the end of the credits if you want to see that part) but we were a little let down with this last clip as it involved Samuel L. Jackson - an actor neither of us can stand at all (we mistakenly saw Snakes on a Plane - if you want to watch a stupid movie with an actor that truly believed it would be a huge hit, go see it; otherwise, forget it ever existed and you won't be sorry).

So we had a pretty fun, early weekend of movies. We also watched I, Robot last night as we really wanted to continue that theme after watching Iron Man. (I had bought this movie for Jeremiah for Christmas; it only took us 6 months to get around to watching it...give you a clue on how busy we've been?!? :) )

Well, that's all for now.