Overall Rating
  Awesome: 55.11%
Worth A Look: 32.39%
Average: 9.09%
Pretty Bad: 0%
Total Crap: 3.41%
7 reviews, 134 user ratings
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| Iron Man |
by Peter Sobczynski
"Hand Of Doom"
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There have been rumors of a big-screen version of the popular Marvel comic book “Iron Man” for nearly two decades now--Tom Cruise and Nicolas Cage were among those mentioned to play the title role and filmmakers ranging from Stuart Gordon to Quentin Tarantino to Joss Whedon were considered to pull the whole thing together--and while I don’t know the details about why these various incarnations failed to take hold, I suspect that most of them fell by the wayside because of their inability to overcome the central flaw that has plagued so many similar adaptations in the past--the necessity of somehow combining years, even decades, of canon into a workable screenplay that somehow manages to entertain and satisfy both the hard-core geek contingent who can cite the most arcane trivia at the drop of a hat as well as those who have never once cracked open a comic, let alone a graphic novel, in their entire lives. It is a tricky job and, sad to say, many of those who have attempted it in the past have failed miserably--too many of these big-screen origin stories spend so much time introducing their heroes, their enemies, their psychological traumas and their superpowers that by the time they are done setting things up and are ready to finally get to the good stuff, they have eaten up nearly two-thirds of their running times and have to rush through everything else so quickly that whatever excitement there might have been gets lost in the shuffle. (In the case of the “X-Men” movies, the roll call of characters and abilities was so long that they seemed to still be introducing themselves even as the end credits were running.) Although “Iron Man” threatens to succumb to this tendency many times during its running time, it contains one valuable asset--a great central performance from Robert Downey Jr.--that transforms the entire enterprise from inconsequential junk to the kind of knockout summer entertainment that turns out to be better than it had to be.Downey stars as Tony Stark, a mechanical genius whose facility for designing and building high-tech weaponry has made him the world’s hippest and hottest war profiteer--the kind who screws “Vanity Fair“ (or at least “Vanity Fair“ reporters) instead of the other way around. While visiting Afghanistan to demonstrate his latest device, a devastating missile system known as “Jericho,” the military contingent that he is traveling with is attacked and he is knocked unconscious. When he comes to, he discovers that is a captive of a terrorist group known as The Ten Rings and that he now has an electromagnet implanted in his chest and hooked up to a car battery that was put there by fellow captive Yinsen (Shaun Toub) in order to keep the shrapnel inside him from reaching his heart and killing him. He also discovers that the Ten Rings, who already possess a large stockpile of Stark Industries weaponry, want him to put together a Jericho system in order to complete their collection. Realizing that this probably wouldn’t be such a smoking hot idea, Stark decides that he, with the help of Yinsen, will instead use the materials provided to him in order to build an impenetrable mechanical suit of armor, complete with flamethrower, that will help him to escape captivity. Amazingly, he manages to free himself and destroy most of the stockpiled weapons before escaping into the desert, where he is eventually rescued by military buddy Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard) and returned to America, where he is reunited with business partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) and loyal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow).
Having had his eyes opened to the horrors caused by his wares, Stark has a change of heart and announces at a press conference that, effective immediately, he will no longer be producing weapons of any sort--a most unwelcome surprise to Obadiah and the stockholders. Looking for some new purpose in his life, Stark begins constructing and testing a new version of the suit that now comes complete with flying capabilities, rockets and the latest in so-called “repulsor” technology (something along the lines of a mini-sonic boom). Around this time, he also learns that his former captors are working on recreating the original suit from the pieces he left behind and are using a new shipment of Stark Industries to wreak further havoc on the locals. Duly inspired, he flies off to Afghanistan to destroy the weapons and defeat the baddies, a move that make him a hero among the locals but catches the unwanted attention of the U.S. military, who try to shoot him out of the sky for his troubles. When he returns home, Stark begins to investigate where the new weapons came from and when he does, it leads to the inevitable third-act battle involving a shocking betrayal (okay, maybe not that shocking) and the sight of two people duking it out while encased in giant robot suits.
“Iron Man” is a typically uneven comic book extravaganza in which extended sequences of FX-heavy mayhem coexist uneasily with long chunks of time in which not much of anything interesting seems to happen. Of the action-heavy scenes, the best involve Stark’s escape from Afghanistan, Stark’s trial runs of the new and improved suit back in the States that finding him careening in the skies over Santa Monica and his return to Afghanistan to settle his score. These sequences work not because of the overwhelming special effects and fight choreography (though both are admittedly impressive) but because they have been staged by director Jon Favreau and shot be Matthew Libatique with a surprisingly effective amount of humor. (There is one gag during the escape sequence that will remind viewers of the Arab swordsman bit from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and the moment in which Stark takes out a tank is so perfectly timed and executed that it still works even though it has been played to death in the commercials and trailers). It is a good thing that these sequences work because others are far more routine in their staging and execution.. In particular, the big finale between the two Iron Men is a disappointment in that it fails to really supply any of the giddy thrills that one might expect to see from the sight of two seemingly indestructible robot-suited people pounding the stuffing out of each other--it just goes on and on without ever finding the kind of unique twist that made the earlier scenes work.
As for the non-effects-oriented material, most of it is a washout as well. Too many of these scenes do nothing more than mark time between the set-pieces in order to give both the technicians and the audience members a breather from the chaos., the plot barely makes any sort of sense and leaves too many questions unanswered (during Stark’s original plan to escape via his suit, what exactly was Yinsen’s non-suited participation in the proceedings?) and when it is revealed who the real villain of the piece is, it makes you wonder why the screenplay bothered to truck in the Afghan terrorists in the first place if they were going to have no real role in the finale. A bigger problem, however, is the fact that, outside of Stark, most of the key players are two-dimensional ciphers who are barely developed at all--Rhodes is the best pal/Lando-like repository of black wisdom, Obadiah is the broadly genial type who seems so upfront and friendly that even the dimmest audience members will quickly twig to the fact that there is more go on with him and Pepper is the steadfast and true aide who finds herself worrying after a brief near-flirtation with her boss that people will no longer take her seriously, a concern that you rarely see these days in a person named Pepper Potts. I suppose this isn’t that surprising of a development--after all, the movie is called “Iron Man” and not “The Adventures of Pepper Potts” (though I know I would line up in an instant for that one)--but it just strikes me as the ultimate cinematic perversity to hire actors as talented as Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and Terrence Howard and then given them the kind of roles that would require weeks of fleshing out in order to ascend to the level of ciphers.
As it turns out, all of those flaws turn out to not really matter too much in the long run because they pretty much fade from mind whenever Robert Downey Jr. is on the screen. An immensely talented and charismatic performer, Downey has spent the last several years rehabilitating himself in the eyes of Hollywood after years of well-documented indiscretions and has now apparently regained their trust enough to achieve that pinnacle that all actors yearn for--the ability to be cast in the lead role of a hoped-for film franchise that, if all goes well, will go on to reap billions of dollars in ticket sales, sequels and merchandizing rights for years to come. Putting him in the role of Iron Man was an enormous risk as quirky performers of his type do not always slip easily into the comparatively straight-laced roles that are usually found at the center of potential film franchises (you may bring up Michael Keaton in “Batman” and I would immediately counter with Nicolas Cage in that “Ghost Rider” nonsense) but it is a risk that pays off beautifully here. His off-screen persona as an overindulgent smartass who is still held in high regard by all who encounter him because of his enormous personal gifts dovetails perfectly with the character of Stark and as a result, the role fits him as snugly and comfortably as his Iron Man suit--both the early goofy stuff and the later moments when he finally decides to get his act together and make good use of his talents instead of letting them go to waste. More importantly, he lends a much-needed acerbic sense of humor to the proceedings that is much appreciated. At times, it almost feels as if he is simply making his lines up as he goes along, not the easiest trick when you consider that many of the scenes involve intricate special effects that presumably weren’t there with him on the set, and it actually lends a strange sense of realism to the proceedings that is often lacking in this kind of film. Essentially, Downey does for this film what Johnny Depp did in the first “Pirates of the Caribbean”--he takes what could have been a fairly flat and unmemorable role and invests it with the kind of freaky fun that is so unexpectedly and strangely endearing that I can’t imagine how the film might have worked with anyone else in the part.There have been a few great origin films amongst the glut of superhero movies to come along in the last few decades and in nearly every case, they have succeeded because the filmmakers have brought something fresh and exciting to the table to shake things up. “Superman” worked because it treated those early scenes with a striking seriousness (right down to Marlon Brando invoking his otherwise risible dialogue with the kind of solemnity ordinarily reserved for the works of Shakespeare) that meshed nicely with the goofier goings-on once the action finally kicked in. Ang Lee’s “Hulk” and Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins” decided to make their films all about the origins and lent the material the kind of psychological depth and resonance that would ordinarily be the first thing to go in the rush to get through the material as quickly as possible. Tim Burton’s “Batman” took perhaps the most radical approach at all by essentially jettisoning all the origin material (save for a flashback or two) in order to get to the good stuff. By comparison, “Iron Man” doesn’t offer viewers anything quite as radical from a narrative perspective--the film pretty much follows the standard superhero movie template to the letter--but it does offer up one inspired wild card in the casting of Robert Downey Jr. in the title role and the result is a slightly-better-than-average popcorn epic featuring a performance that is so funny and inventive and entertaining that he pretty much winds up carrying the entire movie on his shoulders in order to save the day for audiences and Marvel stockholders alike.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=15549&reviewer=389
originally posted: 05/02/08 08:36:20
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USA
02-May-2008 (PG-13)
DVD: 30-Sep-2008
UK
N/A
Australia
01-May-2008
DVD: 30-Sep-2008
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