Smart, sardonic and more than a little silly, Iron Man is a successful super-hero movie that never takes itself too seriously. Here is a popcorn movie with a will to entertain, at turns evoking James Bond, Batman Begins and Transformers; if it’s not in the same league as Batman Begins, it’s better (and shorter) than Transformers, with a redemptive angle foreign to James Bond.
Will Proudfoot and Lee Carter first meet in the school corridor one day when neither is in class. Lee is there because he’s a young hooligan who’s been thrown out of the classroom. Will is there because his science class is watching a documentary videotape, and his ultra-conservative religious persuasion — Plymouth Brethren — doesn’t permit him to watch movies or television.
Christian writer and journalist Peter Hitchens, younger brother of anti-God apologist Christopher Hitchens and in many ways his ideological opposite, has alluded to a similar opposition between Christian writer C. S. Lewis and novelist Philip Pullman, “the anti-Lewis” as the younger Hitchens has called him.
Although the shy, awkward Su‑Chin is far from the most compelling face for the pro-life movement, the film reinforces rather than undermines her basic stance, and her pleas regarding the fetus’s humanity play a key role in persuading Juno to not to go through with the abortion. In this cinematic year of the unborn child, Juno is perhaps the most striking and significant in its pro-life implications.
Lars Lindstrom goes through life doing his utmost not to. Every day he negotiates his world as an obstacle course, and the obstacles are other people. The awkwardness of proximity that many people feel in a crowded elevator as they avoid eye contact with strangers and put conversations on hold is how Lars feels with anybody, anywhere. You could say he is socially maladjusted, except I’m not sure he could be called anything with “socially” in it.