Third Party View

Ladies and Gentlemen, a conversation has been started in this great land of ours, a conversation that is taking place inside every comic book shop, online guild and marching band from one coast to the other and beyond. For a single man to inspire such unabashed enthusiasm and support, he must truly be someone special. He must be a man above all men; some might even say an Iron Man. A hero of this magnitude would surely be the greatest of them all, right?

Billionaire playboy, Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) loves his life. A lot. And why shouldn’t he? He’s rich, can get any woman he wants and to top it off, he’s a genius weapons manufacturer. While on a boozy excursion to demonstrate his newest missile system to the military, Stark comes under attack and is captured by a group of terrorists. Knowing exactly who Stark is, they lock him up and order him build the same weapon for them that he was selling to the military, but Tony has other plans. He builds himself a mechanical suit in order to escape and get a little payback on his captors. Once home, Stark rebuilds and modifies this suit, but when he finds that the weapons his company manufactures have been sold to terrorists, he puts it on and Iron Man goes to take care of business.

When the prospect of Robert Downey, Jr. was first floated out there some comic nerds were a little wary, but not this nerd. Hearing that little bit of casting made me start to think that this movie just might work and, man, does it. If there was a man who was born to play the boozing, carousing, arrogant Tony Stark, It was Robert Downy, Jr. He not only captures the character, but his adlibbing allows the character to really seem more alive than most. There’s a very “in the moment” feel to his dialogue that makes it feel less stiff than most other actioners. Stark really seems to be drunkenly sloshing his way through his life, while we listen to whatever thought that happens to pop off the top of his head. This no more true than it is with any scene he has with Gwyneth Paltrow. Not only is she perfectly cast as a girl Friday style love interest, Pepper Potts, but Paltrow is able to inject a bit of backbone so that she isn’t just a one note character.

Rounding out the cast are Jeff Bridges as Stark’s nefarious business partner Obadiah Stane and Terrence Howard as Stark’s best pal, Jim Rhodes. Upon seeing Bridges with his bald head and goatee, I became a little worried that such an obviously villainous appearance could be a sign of other heavy handed movie conventions, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I didn’t consider the possible that his folksy everyman persona that has made The Big Lebowski such a big cult hit would be perfect for portraying the public face of corporate greed. He may seem like a likeable kind of guy, but behind closed doors Stane is a conniving snake. As far as Howard goes, at this point you shouldn’t expect him to have a bad performance. He’s always solid and that’s no less true as Tony Stark’s friend who loves the guy despite all his foibles. Sometimes it plays almost like exasperated acceptance rather than the easy sort of corny “Oh, that’s our Tony!” angle a lot of other people would have gone for.

I was surprised to find that there were far more quiet moments in Iron Man than I’d thought there would be. That isn’t to say that there isn’t a lot of action or that the film drags in areas, because it doesn’t. From the very first scene it is established that Tony Stark is driving this film while the Iron Man armor is just the vehicle in which he does it. The thing this movie never let’s us forget is that Tony’s genius is the real weapon here and the suit is essentially just a tool being used by the man inside. Either way, whether he’s in the suit or not we enjoy seeing Tony Stark. This dynamic personality allows for a lot more character development in the romantic verbal sparring between Stark and Pepper Potts, the ominous allegiance with Stane and the buddy buddy joking with Rhodey. Even though there are lots of explosions and some amazing special effects, underneath it all is Tony Stark and without making him a character that people want to sit in a theater for two hours and watch, this movie would fail miserably. John Favreau has done a fantastic job of giving those who want a well told story and those who just want to see stuff blow up exactly what they want.

The most amazing thing about this film is how it is not only able to appeal to the general audience, but to the militant comic fanboys who want to flip out over the tiniest detail. Within the comic community there are essentially two camps: the die hards who want to see their favorite character on film exactly the way the are in the comics and then there are those of use who don’t mind a little adaptation as long as the story is good and you don’t change too much. We’re fine as long as you don’t, oh let’s say, give Superman an illegitimate love child. This is one of the few times where they made a movie that was about as true to the comic as you can get, from characterization all the way down to the tone. Even guys who flipped out over the costumes in Batman Begins and X-men don’t have a lot to complain about. Of course, now they’re convinced they’ve been right all along about the principle that what works on the page doesn’t always work on the screen being false. Oh well. I guess we can let them have one win.

Admittedly at its core Iron Man is a buy the numbers comic book origin film. That’s at its core; deep, deep, way down there. It takes what could have been a pretty rote exercise in marketing and merchandising and shows us how good a summer blockbuster can be. But more importantly, Iron Man proves that just because it’s big a budget summer blockbuster, it can be high octane, while at the same time be well written and even better acted. It’s exciting to have such a good film to start of the summer season, especially with last summer being loaded with disappointing sequels (Pirates of the Carribean 3, Spiderman 3) and Transformers. Look, I’m a fan of Batman Begins, X2 and Spiderman 2, so I hate to go out on a limb, but there is a damn fine argument to be made that Iron Man is the best comic book film ever made. That is, of course, until The Dark Knight comes out in July.

A-