The problem with introducing movie-going audiences to a new superhero franchise—something you can expect to witness every summer for the foreseeable future—is that filmmakers are obliged to spend the first flick recounting the age-old “origin” myth. This introductory tale serves to inform viewers how our chosen hero became so damn super in the first place, and why he (or, in rare cases, she) felt obliged to pull on a pair of latex-enhanced tights and fight crime. Detractors of the genre and even the occasional Internet Movie Database message board-trolling fanboy with a DSL connection tend to denounce these “first in the trilogy” films as a necessary evil. Since so much time must be spent on backstory and character-building, there’s not much left for what people came to the theater for in the first place: bulging dudes in Spandex beating the crud out of sneering villains over a CGI re-creation of the New York City skyline.
 Does Robert Downey, Jr. know how to clean up, or what? The Hollywood bad boy channels his past life and a little, shall we say, heavy metal in Iron Man. |
This misguided theory assumes, of course, that all comic books have to offer are fight scenes and lots of them. But as any True Believer knows, those four-color staple-bound bastions of modern mythology are rich in drama, humor, pathos, character, morality and—yes—lots of epic, earth-shattering, “TWAKABOOM!”-filled fight scenes.
To give credit where credit is due, the makers of the first feature film adaptation of Marvel Comics’ venerable title Iron Man seem to understand this pretty darn well. The film doesn’t treat Tony Stark’s transformation into the Invincible Iron Man as the sermon before the soup. It respects the story as the same classic myth it was when Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Don Heck and Jack Kirby dreamed it up back in 1963.
| Trailer for Iron Man. |
With ripped-from-the-headlines expediency, the film updates the Korean War-set tale, thrusting it right into the modern era. Tony Stark (played here by wild card Robert Downey, Jr.) is a notorious military contractor, a technical genius with a weakness for booze and women. Shipped over to Afghanistan to demonstrate his newest missile system, Stark soon finds himself kidnapped by a group of terrorists who have made quite a living sponging off the war profiteer’s high-tech, death-dealing largesse. Gravely wounded and forced to build a weapons system from scratch, Stark rebels against his kidnappers and creates a hulking suit of armor which he uses to dispatch the baddies.
Following a major change of heart (literal and figurative), Stark decides it’s time to ditch his company’s long tradition of weapons manufacturing and embark on more peaceful pursuits. This doesn’t sit well with his military contact (Terrence Howard) or his business partner (Jeff Bridges), both of whom have a lot invested in Stark’s combative creations.
Audience members who come looking for action can rest assured that circumstances will soon force Mr. Stark to upgrade his metallic creation and kick some villainous booty. The action scenes, however, are confined to a trio of set pieces, leaving the rest of the film to flesh out its characters, throw in a little intrigue and tell a few jokes. In fact, Iron Man displays a surprisingly sizable amount of humor, thanks mostly to Downey’s riotous millionaire playboy act. A flirtatious relationship with his gal Friday (Gwyneth Paltrow, another refreshing casting choice) adds one more layer of lightweight fun to the proceedings. Occasionally, the script does gets a bit flippant, but director Jon Favreau (Elf, Zathura) manages to keep things centered by focusing on the grounded performances and seamless special effects. So, if you like superheroes for who they are—not necessarily how much real estate they can blow up in 90 minutes—Iron Man makes for an heroic start to the summer movie season.
