Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
5/4/08
I grew up on Marvel comic
books, particularly the super-team of The Avengers, whose founding members
included The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Thor and Iron Man.
I've kinda lost interest in the comic book form over the years (the only
title I read now is Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8), but those
characters and stories still hold a special place in my heart. Unlike
DC, which has successfully exploited their iconic Batman and Superman characters
brilliantly over the years, Marvel took decades to get its' act together
where film was concerned. But this decade has finally brought a wave
of pretty good films about their characters, particularly Spider-Man and
the X-Men. But even at their best, these movies always had to make
changes, compromises and concessions that allowed them to at best scratch
the surface of the Marvel Universe I loved as a kid. But now, the
company has finally taken the step into producing its' own films rather
than simply optioning the rights to others, and the first product of that
new business model is a knockout. Iron Man has walked off
the pages of his comic book not only as good as I remember, but actually
better. Jon Favreau's film is so good, it could stand on its' own
as a tale of a profiteering defense contractor who decides to put his advanced
technology to better use as a self-made superhero. You'll be hard-pressed
to find a better character to spend two hours with this year than Robert
Downey, Jr.'s Tony Stark, and the movie that surrounds him bursts with
the pure joy of superheroism. And any Marvel Maniac worth his No
Prize will go bananas when they see what waits after the end credits.
Tony Stark has it all:
fame, fortune, genius, and the only thing that kept him from sleeping with
all 12 Maxim cover models last year was “a scheduling conflict”.
He runs defense contractor Stark Enterprises with his late father's right-hand
Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) and proudly travels the world to show off
weapons “you only have to use once.” On one such trip, in Afghanistan,
his convoy is attacked and he's taken prisoner by a Warlord named Raza
(Faran Tahir), who demands that he use their suspiciously large stockpile
of Stark Enterprises weapons to construct the very device he was there
to demonstrate. Stark's chest is filled with shrapnel after the attack
and the only thing keeping him alive is an electromagnet hooked up to a
car battery by fellow prisoner Yinsen (Shaun Taub). Instead of building
the missile, the two men spend the few days alloted by their captors building
a lethal suit of armor to bust out. The suit works, but now that
the liberated Stark has seen the damage his weapons do in the wrong hands,
he's determined to build a new, more powerful armor to help right the wrongs
he's caused. While his Air Force officer friend Jim Rhodes (Terrence
Howard) and personal assistant “Pepper” Potts (Gweneth Paltrow) struggle
to understand his new worldview, Stane plots to build his own suit of armor,
and to dissolve their partnership with extreme prejudice.
Iron Man is a rarity among
the iconic Marvel heroes in that Tony Stark could be a totally normal person
if he wanted to. The only thing that makes him Iron Man is his own
feeling of responsibility to use his genius to help save the world.
No mutation, no lab accident: while every hero must make the choice
to use his powers for good, Stark made the choice to have his powers in
the first place, and it's that choice that the Iron Man movie wisely
focuses on. Downey is every bit as sensational as fanboys dared hope
when his casting was announced; funny, smart and totally cool without sacrificing
a bit of the character's emotional arc. The scenes showing his trial
and error construction of the armor are delightful. It's very rare
to see a movie put this much time and energy into the process of invention,
and Downey, Jr. is perfectly pitched to seem both smart enough to dream
this stuff up on the fly and bold enough to actually test it out (some
of the early, failed tests are hilarious). The character is both
cool and solitary enough that I actually bought his colorful collection
of robot assistants as legitimate rather than simply movie inventions.
The Artificial Intelligence Jarvis (comic fans will know why I had a geek
attack when I first heard the name), which controls both Stark's nifty
mansion and the computer functions of the suit, is voiced to perfection
by an uncredited Paul Bettany. While I'm sure most of it is bunk
if I actually knew anything about the sciences involves, Iron Man
manages to make you feel like you're actually watching superhero science
in action, and it's an awfully cool thing to behold.
The rest of the cast keeps
pace. I don't know if Paltrow has ever been as purely likable as
she is as Potts, and she and Downey, Jr. share sparkling chemistry.
Howard also does a lot with a little in a role fanboys know will grow over
time (there's a nice nod to his future near the end). Bridges is
perfect as Stane, utterly ruthless beneath a charming facade and never
once over the top. Even when uttering sinister proclamations inside
the giant anti-Iron Man suit the Iron Monger (OK, only we comic book people
know it's called that, but he does use that phrase earlier in the movie),
the Big Lebowski is perfectly in character. Taub also shines in a
key role as the man who sets Stark on his fateful collision course with
conscience. I really liked Clark Gregg in a small role I shouldn't
say too much about, and the obligatory Stan Lee cameo made me laugh out
loud.
It's funny that it took four
credited writers and tons of improvisation by the actors on set to make
a movie that seems so totally organic and focused. Having only one
villain rather than the currently fashionable two helps to free up time
to really focus on both the personal and mechanical ways that Tony Stark
becomes Iron Man. It's also the rare case where a villain who's the
mirror image of the hero really serves what the story is trying to say
rather than just screenwriting laziness. Iron Man is about
the possibility of personal change and also the obligation we all face
to do our part in helping to make the world a better place. The final
shot (before the credits) isn't just a cool plot point, it's also got real
inspirational zing to it. And I loved the fact that post-epiphany
Tony Stark is still cool and funny: too many movies insist that being
a good person and fun to be around are mutually exclusive.
The special effects are amazing.
Three different versions of the Iron Man suit are nifty as hell, with the
first looking perfectly built on the fly from spare parts and the last
walking right out of the comics. The character's flights are wonderfully
realistic as opposed to many heroes who seem to be divorced from the laws
of physics when in the air. And the Iron Monger is just flat-out
cool, especially when the suit “transforms” open to reveal Stane inside
running the show. The characters' climactic slugfest, while brief,
delivers the goods.
Iron Man is a great
comic book movie and really feels like it's the start of something big.
Director Jon Favreau, whose previous work never began to hint he was capable
of something of this scale or dramatic weight, deserves all the credit
in the world for taking a character who's never been one of the more famous
Marvel heroes and doing total justice by him I can't wait to see
the further adventures of Tony Stark, Pepper Potts and Jim Rhodes, and
I can't wait to see what Marvel Studios has to offer next. It won't
be a long wait: The Incredible Hulk is just over a month away.
***SPOILER ALERT: READ
NO FURTHER UNTIL AFTER SEEING IRON MAN, AND DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT
LEAVING BEFORE THE END CREDITS***
***OH, AND WHAT FOLLOWS IS
JUST PURE GEEKERY. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!***
OK, now that it's just us
geeks who've already seen the movie, how about that extra scene that plays
after the end credits with Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury? The message
he delivers to Stark is mind-blowing on so many levels, particularly given
what I said in the opening sentence has always been my favorite Marvel
comic. But perhaps most interesting of all is the notion that Marvel
Studios is really planning to interlock their movies in the same way that
the Marvel Universe itself interlocks. Downey, Jr. has a cameo in
The
Incredible Hulk as Stark, and the idea that the Avengers movie
on the drawing board (Zak Penn has been hired to write it) would combine
previously established movie heroes as opposed to just B-team Avengers
like Hawkeye and the Wasp is really too much to hope for. Would such
a thing ever be feasible? I suppose it depends on how much the actors
themselves are on board. If Ocean's 11 worked in modern movie
economics, why not The Avengers? Particularly for a Marvel
empire that would gain untold millions from making Earth's Mightiest Heroes
the same kind of brand name outside of comic circles that the Justice League
is. Get me Ultron as the villain, and my brain could not handle the
hype!
Thanks for the indulgence,
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