“Scrappy Hero Takes War on Terror to New Heights”

Let’s face it, in the history of dubious casting for superheroes, 42 year-old Robert Downey Jr. has to rank near the top, right? I mean, picking George Clooney to play Batman would seem less risky and more of a natural fit. Oh wait, Clooney did play Batman (and even with an abysmal script I still think he filled the cowl more adequately than Kilmer, which was another casting head-scratcher).

So go ahead and admit it. I’m sure you, like me, were more than just a little surprised when you first heard that Downey Jr. had been tapped to play the mechanized Marvel mainstay. Still, no one is more surprised, or grateful, to be playing billionaire playboy Tony Stark, and his titanium plated alter-ego, than Downey Jr. himself. “I never thought I’d have a shot at doing something like this because of my past,” Downey Jr. shared with Empire (Apr. 08). That brand of humility stands in…er, stark contrast to Downey Jr’s character, the Bill Gates of weapons manufacturing who exudes supreme confidence in his abilities, but whose flippant manner, irreverent attitude and self-absorption relegates him to a life of isolation, bereft of friendship save for his loyal assistant, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow).

Following a successful demonstration of his newly designed Jericho missile in the deserts of Afghanistan, Stark’s motorcade of military Humvees is ambushed. As he runs for cover, a piece of shrapnel impales Stark in the chest. Black out. Waking inside a cave, Stark finds a circular electromagnetic device in his chest, which is keeping the metal fragments from working their way toward his heart. The device is powered by a car battery. But don’t worry, the battery doesn’t run out of juice before Stark creates an implant from odds and ends provided by his terrorist captors. Using these same scraps, the terrorists order Stark to build a Jericho missile from memory and scratch, but they’re a little slow in figuring out that what Stark is forging isn’t a WMD, but a body suit wrought from iron. Funny how the two could be so easily confused! Stark/Iron Man Mk. I plows his way through terrorists, destroys their camp (which, ironically, contains many of Stark’s munitions) and is rescued from the desert heat by conveniently placed helicopters, commanded by Stark’s military pal, Col. Rhodes (Terrence Howard).

And so we have Iron Man’s origins tale. Well, not quite…I left out the villain. Obadiah Stane, right-hand man of Stark’s deceased father, was slighted when Stark came of age and rightfully took over Stark Industries. When he catches wind of Stark’s next great breakthrough, Stane builds a Hulk-sized version of Stark’s body armor and dubs it Iron Monger. Admittedly, some of this is a bit silly; like how they can create these exorbitantly expensive suits seemingly on demand. Though Stane’s lecture to Stark during the climactic melee is patently hackneyed, Stane is actually a decent adversary, largely because he has motive, usurping Stark’s authority and notoriety, and means, undermining Stark’s interests and using Stark’s own billions against him. Armed with a distinctly resonant baritone voice (which you can hear lauding the dependability of Duracell batteries on TV ads) and an impressively wide acting range, Bridges’ Stane is a plausible antagonist because he’s the first villain in recent memory that isn’t insane, mad-at-the-world, given to grandiose speeches, needlessly narcissistic or downright inane.

I used the word “plausible” because it’s one of director Jon Favreau’s (Zathura) watchwords for his film. Favreau told Empire, “There are so many superhero movies now, how do you differentiate yourself?” Well, plausibility for one; but a slick-looking red and gold armor suit and high-end FX doesn’t hurt either. There’s plenty of hi-tech eye candy in the film, like the high-speed game of cat-and-mouse between two F-22 Raptors and our eponymous hero, but there are actually very few (compared to other recent superhero flicks) battle scenes: I’d say the ratio is 70% story and 30% action. An army of eight writers hashed out the story and screenplay, and that melting pot of scribes has created an accessible hero, a believable villain and a storyline ripped from today’s headlines. Thankfully, the movie’s political commentary is treated even-handedly, and in the post-9/11 world, Iron Man has become the very personification of our hopes for a terror-free world. The first big screen appearance of this comic hero couldn’t be timelier.

Favreau has crafted taut action scenes and tight dramatic segues, like the skillfully nuanced non-romance between Stark and Potts; can’t wait to see what happens to their relationship in the sequel. Yes, sequel! The way I see it, the only way this doesn’t become a franchise is if Iron Man runs into Magneto in the next film. Canned Stark!

Rating: 3

Tags: Action, Adventure, Fantasy