I’m a little late getting this review up, my computer crashed and it is just now starting to run okay. But enough of the excuses, I went and saw Iron Man last Sunday and it is easily one of the best superhero movies ever made, easily sliding into the top hierarchy alongside such cinematic gems as Superman, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, and Batman Begins.
A brief synopsis of the plot, Tony Stark is a genius weapons manufacturer who, while in Afghanistan to demonstrate his latest missile to the military, is attacked and captured by terrorists. Dying from a chest full of shrapnel working towards his heart, he only has a week to live and the terrorists are wanting him to make a version of his new missile for them. Instead he builds a device to keep his heart going and a robotic suit to escape with. Once back home he shuts down the weapons manufacturing wing of his company and works on perfecting his armored suit, only to discover that the original attack on him was ordered by one of his oldest friends, which leads to robotic mano a mano showdown.
Iron Man does something that has been missing from superhero movies since the first Superman, namely a sense of humor about itself. While some films have had some jokes scatter about, the over all tone is still dark, i.e. the Spider-Man, X-Men, and Batman films. But here although the acting and setting are played straight and serious, there is an amusing subtext to a lot of whats going on. A perfect example is a scene where Pepper Potts has to replace the device in Stark’s chest that keeps him alive. It is a brilliant piece of film making that combines funny dialogue to a suspenseful sequence with an erotic subtext.
The acting is all top notch with Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow both give great performances, Howard easily showing his growing frustration with first the playboyish Stark and then with the more responsible Stark, while Paltrow shows a vast range of emotion in a character who is falling in love with her employer, knows it’s a bad idea, and actually manages to get some distance from him.
Of course Robert Downey, Jr. is the big star her, playing the hard partying Stark just right and is fascinating to watch as he gradually moves from walled off indifference toward redemption for his past turning of a blind eye to the flip side of what his weapons making causes. He is helped in part by his own past indiscretions which are always in the back of the viewer’s mind.
And yet as great as Downey is, he is blown off the screen by Jeff Bridges’ villainous Obadiah Stane ( how can you not be a villain with a name like that). He is a gregarious and ingratiating presence until about the two thirds mark, when you see his utterly ruthless true colors start to emerge. His best scene is a monologue given to a paralyzed Downey, where you realize in his mind he isn’t the villain, Downey is. In Stane’s world view he is the hero, working to correct the problems in the world and bring everything back in balance. What really makes it work is some of what he says is hard to argue with. Wow! Relevancy in a comic book movie.
So I highly recommend seeing it. It has action for the action fans, romance for the romance fans, and some intelligent commentary on the state of the world right now and what our place it has been and could become. Plus Stan “The Man” Lee has a cameo as Hugh Hefner(?!?). Something for everyone.
