Iron Man
Released: May 2008
Runtime: 126 minutes
Rated: PG-13 (violence, suggestive scenes)The opening
salvo, in what is sure to be a blockbuster season at the movies, puts Iron Man
clearly in the lead having already grossed over $223 million dollars worldwide
since its release in early May. (But watch out
Iron Man - Indy is hot on your
heels)!
Robert Downey Jr stars as Tony Stark, a billionaire playboy
and military arms genius who, captured during a visit to Afghanistan, is forced
to create a missle for a local warload. But instead of creating the missle,
Stark creates an iron suit allowing him to escape his captors. Back in the
United States, Stark becomes a changed man (as any man might after being
captured and tortured by terrorists) using his previous military weapons genius
in creating his mortal "superhero" known as
Iron Man (the newly developed suit
made back in the USA is not actually made of iron but according to Stark is a
"gold titanium alloy").
Downey Jr plays to perfection Stark's mix of playboy and
genius and with the help of his faithful assistant, Pepper Pots (Gwyneth Paltrow),
set out to change the world one evil-doer at a time. While Downey Jr is
definitely the star of the show, it is actually Paltrow who sparkles with a
Bond-Girl-like performance that harkens back to the early days of 007 with a
delightful and understated (and sexually charged we dare say) performance.
Robert Downey Jr stars as Tony Stark
in the first summer blockbuster, Iron Man
The one great disappointment in this movie is Jeff Bridges as
the outwardly “good” but inwardly “evil” Obadiah Stane, Starks’ right-hand man.
While every good action story needs a villain or two or three (and
Iron Man has
several) it is obvious right from the start that Stane is not the supportive
mentor to Stark that we are lead to believe. Bridges telegraphs his inner evil
way too soon in the movie and the penultimate fight between Stane (as Iron
Monger) and Stark (as Iron Man) is never really a question of how, but when.
As is the tradition with any summer blockbuster in recent
history,
Iron Man comes complete with eye-popping special effects, action and
things that that get “blow’d up real good” (with apologies to Joe Flaherty and
John Candy). Fortunately for us the CGI effects in Iron Man are truly amazing
and Director Jon Favreau uses them to help drive the story rather than
completely drown it in a sea of digital effects.
Iron Man puts yet another notch in the belt of
comic-come-movies for Marvel Comics (Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, X-Men, Hulk to
name a few) and it ranks right up there with the best of them. In fact Iron Man
is superior to some of the earlier movie versions of some of Marvel’s other
comic books - can anyone we say “The Hulk” or “Daredevil”? And the best thing
is, one doesn’t need to know anything about Iron Man the comic book to enjoy
this movie!
Given the ending (which does include one delightful surprise)
we are no doubt being set-up for another movie franchise – let’s hope that is a
good thing and that both Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow sign on for the
second
Iron Man
movie. Thank goodness Bridges’ character is dead … we can only hope!
