It seems Hollywood has fallen in love with the geek – there's a virtual tsunami of geek-friendly flicks set to shine on the silver screen in 2008. Here’s a quick primer to eight films with a definite geek twist.
Iron Man
A big suit of armour. A semi-inebriated Robert Downey Junior. Lots and lots of flying scenes with plenty of explosions – the very definition of a popcorn movie, with tech along for the ride.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhgzIM-9lfA
King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters
A strange documentary about two men, a twenty year old arcade game, a young boy who needs to go to the toilet, and high scores. Somehow, all of that actually does make sense, and you can feel good about yourself watching it – unlike Iron Man, it’s real life. Just don’t read the Wikipedia page first.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPLjXjObEms
Also check out our King of Kong review.
The Dark Knight
Unlike Iron Man’s shiny suit, the sequel to the excellent Batman Begins looks like it’ll keep the same dark, gritty tone as its forebear. Anything to get away from the BatNipples of the 90’s films would be good with us. Did we mention the Batcycle?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3AbwKVKtHM
X-Files 2
Presumably there are still some fans of Chris Carter’s mid-90’s mystery-fest out there, and as such, they’re probably the core audience for the movie sequel to a film that came out ten years ago. Either that, or David Duchovny really, really needed the money. No official trailer as yet, which is a bit worrying for a film due out mid-year.
The Incredible Hulk
We’ll admit – we actually didn’t mind Ang Lee’s rather tortured 2003 Hulk flick. But a lot of people didn’t, and you can expect this re-imagining of Bruce Banner’s origin story to feature a whole lot more “Hulk Smash” and a whole lot less “irradiated toad slowly bloats until it explodes” shots.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia3uPDuojmU
The Time Traveller’s Wife
Not all geeks are male, comic-book fans, however. On the surface, this flick might appear to be your standard girly-weepy-romantic snorefest, but there’s a distinctly geeky twist. When the male lead Eric Bana (he’s no longer the Hulk, you see) gets stressed, he turns into a green mass of destructive muscle . . . no, wait, that is the Hulk. When the male lead in this film gets stressed, he travels through time, which can play merry hell with your dating schedule.
The Time Traveller's Wife on IMDB
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
The original Hellboy film was dark, Nazi-obsessed and quite gripping. The sequel has fairy characters with names like “Mr Wink”, “Frugglewump” and “Princess Nuala”. In proper Hellboy fashion, however, these are some seriously ticked off little Elves and Goblins, and they’re out for revenge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60XAXme3eBU
21
And if you wanted final proof that Hollywood’s adopted the Geek mantra with gusto, we present 21. Sure, on the surface it’s a glitzy flick about beating the Las Vegas Casino odds – expect lots of bright lights, rattling roulette wheels and tons of silicon cleavage – but the basis of the story is a group of pure maths nerds at MIT. Pure maths in a mainstream Hollywood flick – perhaps there is hope for us geeks after all . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfn6rpJHHbI