PARAMOUNT PICTURES and MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT Present
A Marvel Studios Production
Iron Man (2008)
DIRECTOR: Jon Favreau
WRITERS: Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby and Art Marcum & Matt Holloway
PRODUCERS: Avi Arad and Kevin Feige
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Matthew Libatique, ASC (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Dan Lebental, A.C.E.
PRODUCTION DESIGNER: J. Michael Riva
COMPOSER: Ramin Djawadi

Starring:  Robert Downey, Jr., Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow, Faran Tahir, and Shaun Toub

Opening date:  Friday, May 2, 2008
Running time:  126 minutes
Rating:  MPAA – PG-13 for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence and brief suggestive content

The summer blockbuster is rarely a locus of artistic or dramatic effort. Summer movies are about the journey, not the destination. In between more serious attempts at film making like The Departed or Chariots of Fire, summertime “popcorn blockbusters” are the greasy, mammoth roadside rest stops in the land of cinema. The Sheetz, or Wawas, if you will. And you don’t go to Sheetz for quality of experience. You go for sheer, mind-numbing quantity (THEY HAVE FOURTEEN FLAVORS OF JOLT! SCORE!). Likewise, one goes to summer movies for sheer, mind-numbing quantity (THEY HAVE FOURTEEN KINDS OF DISEMBOWELMENTS! SWEET!) I went to Iron Man last night expecting a 56 oz. Slurpee’s worth of mind-rotting fun, but was surprised, upon leaving the theater, to discover I’d gotten a three course meal.

The Obligatory Warning: very brief scenes of torture, brief harsh language, generic shootings/action movie violence.

Ridiculous extended metaphors aside, Iron Man is an impressive movie. It definitely deserves comparison with the best comic book movies like Spider-Man 2 or Batman Begins, and can hold its own outside the genre, too. The acting is first-rate. The direction is first-rate. The visual effects blend with the film; they don’t simply support a weak plotline. Even the writing is surprisingly solid.

The plot is an update of the original Iron Man origin story: billionaire industrialist and playboy Tony Stark gets injured, builds a device to keep himself alive, and subsequently uses said device to power a giant metal crime fighting suit. It’s as if Howard Hughes had seen an effective UNICEF commercial, gotten misty-eyed, and turned the Spruce Goose into an intercontinental meals-on-wheels—only, Tony Stark can blow up tanks. Which is awesome.

Tony Stark’s transformation from boozing playboy to conscientious superhero is deftly embodied by Robert Downey, Jr. He somehow balances emotion and restraint, communicating a religious convert’s high level of passion without resorting to histrionics. Downey Jr.’s performance preserves the flawed complexities of a man willing to make a major life change, while still involving the viewer in that personal revolution. The transformation from social parasite to hero is richly complex in Downey Jr.’s hands. Iron Man doesn’t overdose on the goodness of Tony Stark’s prodigal-son revelation. Even after he decides to become a hero, director Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. preserve a tangible sense that Stark, up until now, has wasted his life, which gives the film a degree of subtle pathos.

The supporting performances are also impressive. Terrence Howard’s James “Rhodey” Rhodes provides a strong, defiant-yet-supportive foil to Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark. Howard’s Rhodes is confident and forward, but simultaneously vulnerable and worried at his friend’s sudden transformation. Gwyneth Paltrow plays love interest/Stark’s secretary Pepper Potts, who also challenges Stark’s sudden change of heart. Paltrow, too, has an emotionally complex part, as a friend and assistant suddenly transformed into an object of desire. She’s thankfully up to the task. Arguably best among the supporting cast, however, is Jeff Bridges’ Obadiah Stane, Tony Stark’s chief business partner. Stane is a slick, sinister, self-proclaimed “ironmonger” who rationalizes his villainy frighteningly well. Bridges’ presence is necessary without being overbearing, and his executive surety seems to say that if the PR looks good enough, evil doesn’t have to be all that bad.   

The stunning scene in question.

There’s always a temptation in comic book movies for visual gimmicks and special effects to dominate the camera. Jon Favreau opts instead for wry humor and visual restraint. As a result, he’s shown that the comic book movie, and the American superhero, that most clichéd of fictional figures, may be capable of far more dramatic import than most critics would happily admit. In one particularly impressive scene, Paltrow’s Pepper Potts sneaks into Tony Stark’s office to copy information that will condemn Obadiah Stane’s involvement with a terrorist group. Bridges’ Stane catches Potts in the act, and slowly prowls his way around Stark’s regal office to where she sits. “I know what you’re doing,” he says with a soulless grin. Potts plays off Stane’s advances, just barely maintaining her cool. What astounds me is that this scene—where the slimy villain catches the damsel in distress—is done without screaming fits or explosions. There’s palpable, almost Hitchcockian tension, to be sure—but, like Hitchcock, the secret is in the restraint, in all those harrowing “could’s” that are forever, teasingly beyond the reach of the viewer’s imagination.

The mixture of emotion and restraint, of genuine feeling and psychological transformation, all couched in the opulent trappings of multi-million dollar business, is occasionally reminiscent of moments in Ayn Rand’s 1957 classic Atlas Shrugged (though Stark admittedly takes a non-Objectivist direction with his company’s finances). Possible Atlas Shrugged director Vadim Perelmen (of House of Sand and Fog fame) would do well to take note…

Obadiah Stane, pointing out that that's, just, like, your opinion, man...

Iron Man is certainly Marvel’s strongest offering in awhile, and may wind up holding its own as one of the strongest films of the year. It may not get you as hopped up as sampling all fourteen varieties of jolt, but the film’s more complex thrills will leave you far more impressed, and still have you equally as wide-eyed and open mouthed as 56 ounces of any semi-dangerous caffeine overdose.

Worth the money? Definitely. Even if you hate comic book movies, Iron Man will be enjoyable.