Iron Man

Iron Man may well be one of the minor superheroes in the Marvel stables, but Iron Man the movie is certainly not a minor movie. I fact, I am going out on a limb and calling it the best superhero movie so far. Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark has more character and attitude in his little toe than all the Clark Kents, Bruce Waynes and Peter Parkers put together. The back story to the creation of Iron Man is compelling and the action is real and convincing. The gadgets, cars (including the eye-watering Audi R8) and Stark’s Malibu cliff-top pad are all utterly cool. I even (contrary to popular opinion) like the Gwyneth Paltrow side-kick, Pepper Potts. My boys have not stopped talking about the movie. Word like “sick” and “awesome” have been bandied about.

Pan's Labyrinth

This is an excellent film from Spanish director Guillermo del Torro. It has elements in common with his The Devil’s Backbone i.e. children, war and the supernatural. Whilst at least half the film is set in the fantasy world of a nine year old girl, this is not a movie for kids. It is brutal and uncompromising in depicting the horrors of war and the cruelty of the Franco’s fascist army suppressing the resistance. The harshness of the violence is, however, necessary, as it magnifies our engagement with the characters. Ofelia is the little girl who finds herself in almost unbearable circumstances from which her only escape is into a world of fantasy. Such is the power of this film that we want to believe, as much as she does, that the fantasy is true. Del Torro’s message, which is subtle and not hammered home, is that the ultimate weapon against fascism is independent thought. As one of the characters says to the commander of the fascist troops: it takes a man like him to obey orders unquestioningly.

Born Free

Born Free, the 1966 film adaptation of Joy Adamson’s novel, is a great, heart-warming story of a couple who raise a brood of lion cubs and then set one of them, Elsa, free – back into the wild. It is a true story, of course, based on the experiences of Joy and George Adamson, when he was a game ranger in Kenya. Elsa and the Adamson’s go through a hard trial to get her accustomed to fending for herself in the wild after growing up in domesticity. It was the first time this type of release had been done. The Adamsons showed great ingenuity in how they went about it. The characters appear ludicrously stiff and formal, but this reflects the norms of the time the film was made, rather than any failing on the part of the actors. The scenes with Elsa interacting with lions in the wild are quite extraordinary and I can’t quite imagine how they were done. With great patience, I expect. Definitely a worthwhile movie and one the whole family can enjoy. Again, as with Out Of Africa, and other films that evoke Africa’s colonial past I cannot help but feel a certain sadness for an Africa now forever lost.