(Long Island, N.Y.) Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, is atypical as far as superhero alter-egos go. He’s not a nerdy school kid pining away for the girl of his dreams, nor is he some angst-ridden recluse out to avenge the death of his family. He’s not even mildly annoyed about social or environmental issues. In reality, Tony Stark is an arrogant billionaire playboy industrialist living the good life, and there’s not much these types really need to fret about, is there?
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Oh, boy, yet another movie based on a comic book superhero.” And yes, you’d be right for thinking that, but you’d be mistaken if you wrote it off as simply run-of-the-mill. Iron Man, although not as well-known as Spiderman or Superman, has nonetheless produced a film that easily on par with the very best of the comic book genre and then some.
Iron Man, a character originally created in the 1960’s by Stan Lee for Marvel Comics, represents a major first for comic book-based movies. It’s the first movie where Marvel refrained from selling the rights of one of their properties to another studio, losing creative control and the majority of the profits in the process. Establishing their own production company, they put up the money for Iron Man themselves through various backers, hired the director (Elf’s Jon Favreau), the writers, and kept a firm grasp on the creative reigns throughout. As a result, Iron Man has the distinction of not only being an excellent movie in its own right, but being one the most loyal comic-to-film adaptations of all time.
So, I mentioned this Tony Stark guy in the first paragraph. Played brilliantly by Robert Downey Jr., Tony Stark is a genius inventor and owner of Stark Industries, a mammoth corporation inherited from his late father. Although Stark Industries’ commercial interests run the gamut from medical to the scientific, their primary business is arms dealing, and it is this aspect of his company that brings Tony to Afghanistan to demonstrate his company’s newest weapon system for the U.S. military. Accompanied by his long-time friend and military liaison, Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard), Stark wows the Army brass, ensuring himself of yet another juicy arms contract.
However, en route back to headquarters after the demonstration, Stark’s convoy is attacked and he finds himself seriously wounded and captured by very rude terrorists. Armed with spiffy Stark Industries weapons and oddly aware of exactly who he is, they demand Stark build a missile for them out of a heap of scrap that would make Fred Sanford jealous. With the aid of a fellow captive, Stark first constructs a miniature arc reactor to power an electromagnet “pacemaker” which protects his heart from shrapnel in his chest, embedded during his capture. And as a nice F-U to his captors, Tony decides not to build a missile but instead a crude armored exoskeleton, which he uses to stomp the terrorists into the ground and make his escape, A-Team style.
Rescued, Stark has not come through his ordeal without having his eyes opened to the realities of his lucrative arms dealing. Seeing first-hand how much suffering his weapons have caused to innocents, Stark calls a press conference and announces his company’s complete withdrawal from the arms business, much to the chagrin of long-time business partner, Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges, completely bald and sporting a beard). Taking a break from public life, Stark retreats to the seclusion of his personal high-tech estate, interacting only with his personal secretary and budding love interest, Virginia “Pepper” Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), and his artificially intelligent computer system, JARVIS. Stark finds himself intrigued by the armor he was able to cobble together out of old car batteries and lawn mower parts and decides to see what he can do with some real resources behind him. Eventually, he realizes a new, more powerful version of his life-sustaining arc reactor and a far superior suit of armor, one capable of flight and packing enough firepower to take on all of Compton.
Learning that his company’s munitions are still finding their way into the hands of terrorists and being used against civilians, Stark uses his armor to fly to Afghanistan, rescuing a village from the same terrorists that had previously captured him and destroying their weapon stockpiles in the process. As the story continues, Stark is confronted with betrayal from trusted allies within Stark Industries itself, and eventually is forced to do battle with a larger, meaner suit of powered armor, reverse engineered from his very own prototype suit discarded in Afghanistan. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Of course it does.
Iron Man is very different than many of the recent films based on comic book characters. How so? Well, there’s a number of ways:
First, it feels a lot more realistic. Yes, I know it’s about a guy in pimped-out flying robotic armor, but how they slowly develop the technological evolution that gets him to that point makes it easier to believe in. It’s established that Tony was a Wile E. Coyote-style super-genius practically right from birth, so when he builds the clunky Mark 1 armor out of junk, it’s much easier to buy into than if he was just some dullard off the street.
Second, we have an all-star cast headed up by the amazing Robert Downey Jr., who manages to carry this movie square on his shoulders with his amazing performance. Downey’s well-publicized personal inner demons made him a perfect choice to play Tony Stark, a character with many similarities to the formerly-troubled actor. It’s a testament to Downey’s abilities that he can take an arrogant, hard-partying, womanizing wiseass and have him come across as a completely likable jerk with a sense of humor. Howard, Bridges, and Paltrow all hold up their ends of the bargain as well.
Yet another reason why Iron Man works so well is due in no small industry legend. Eschewing computer graphics whenever possible in favor of complex physical effects, Stark’s armor comes to life in a way I never thought possible. It seamlessly helps you suspend disbelief- there never was a point where I was nit-picking how cheesy anything looked, as the combination of CG and live-action was so perfect.
And special mention goes to the great job Jon Favreau did directing this thing. Favreau’s preference towards building up a solid, well-paced and entertaining story with solid character development over just mindlessly delving into the action right off the bat is a refreshing change of pace these days. While I was a comic book fan growing up, I had always considered Iron Man a second-tier character when compared to the likes of Spider-Man or the X-Men. Jon Favreau has changed all that and is responsible for the beginnings of what’s sure to be a huge franchise, unless Marvel does something completely stupid like not re-hire him for the sequel (already scheduled for release on April 30, 2010- talk about striking the “Iron” while its hot).
Iron Man is an odd movie to recommend- one would assume this would only be appreciated by comic book aficionados, but the buzz this film is generating and its current huge success (#1 two weeks in a row) suggests that it’s actually crossing over into mainstream movie audiences. It’s solid in many ways that most comic books movies aren’t in the sense that it tries to be a good movie in it’s own right, regardless of its comic book roots. The fact that it manages to do so while remaining so loyal to its source material is just a huge bonus.
In closing, I realize that I’ve not said one negative thing about Iron Man, but the complaints I have are minor and would spoil certain plot points I’ve gone out of my way not to reveal. Trust me, whether you like films about superheroes or not, give this one a try.
