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Sunday, September 7, 2008
Movie Review: Iron Man
'Iron Man' gets summer off to strong start
By John Wirt
jwirt@theadvocate.com
Advocate movie critic
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out of 4 stars.
Iron Man gives the summer movie season a smashing start. In the tradition of the Spider-man and Batman movies of recent years, it’s a superhero movie with a brain and a heart. It’s got mighty action sequences, too, and the most wit and humor of any superhero flick in recent memory.
Robert Downey Jr. stars as super-rich arms manufacturer and inventor Tony Stark. While Downey’s had his much-publicized troubles with drugs and the law, he’s a great talent. He absolutely clicks as Stark, a cocky playboy-capitalist who’s got the world on a string, flying high in the sky in his private jet with a flock of lovely, dancing flight attendants and a fully stocked cabinet of booze.
Iron Man’s screenplay, based on the Marvel comics’ character and credited to four writers, effectively depicts Stark’s pre-superhero life. That’s important, because Stark is a man who subsequently endures a life-changing ordeal, a hazardous journey that ultimately inspires an incredible force for good called Iron Man.
The film’s timely plot involves war in Afghanistan, international weapons sales and lack of big-corporation accountability. At first, Stark is unapologetic about the source of his immense wealth. “Peace means having a bigger stick than the other guy,” he tells a reporter whose own ethics suffer from serious loopholes.
A trip to Afghanistan to demonstrate another of his incredibly destructive products places Stark in dangerous territory. His shock-and-awe demonstration goes brilliantly, but the return road trip to his jet goes disastrously off message. Modeled upon the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the film’s fiery assault on an American military convoy escorting Stark is as devastating as it is instantaneous. No glory or glamour of war here.
Just as Downey’s performance as Stark is an ace for Iron Man, the movie contains a fine villain, too. Faran Tahir, an actor of Pakistani descent, plays Raza, leader of a terrorizing gang of killers whose loyalties are never explained. Raza doesn’t rant, he doesn’t shout. He’s intelligent, calculating, understated, qualities that render him all the more menacing.
Downey’s other essential co-stars include Gwyneth Paltrow as his right-hand woman, the cool, resourceful, ever-dependable Pepper Potts. Stark and Pepper’s deliciously unstated yet palpable affection for one another is among the highly entertaining Iron Man’s most engaging elements.
Also in the strong cast are Terrence Howard as Stark’s Colin Powell-like military liaison and the initially unrecognizable Jeff Bridges doing his sharpest work in years.
As good as Iron Man’s writing, directing and acting are, it’s still a superhero film, which means action and special effects play their prominent parts. The movie has thrills, much of which involve flying. Iron Man, besides being a supreme weapon on land, is an aerial marvel.
With so much going for it, Iron Man is poised to be the worthy victor at this weekend’s movie box office.
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