Comic Book Movie Lives Up To Expectations - 'Iron Man' Review...
It was with great expectations that I saw Iron Man, having heard so many good things about it. Robert Downey Jr. has a tendency to put some people off because of some things about his personal life, but he is undeniably a powerful actor and he shines at his brightest here. This is a comic book movie, but Downey Jr.'s unique performance, as well as the addition of Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow lend credibility to a movie that might otherwise have come across as a weak superhero movie like Daredevil. But Iron Man is a comic book movie that takes place in the real world and combines a comic book superhero subject with a very real issue of international terrorism.Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark, a super-intelligent scientist who owns a company called Stark Industries that specializes in the manufacture of high-tech weapons. On a routine weapons demonstration in Afghanistan, he is seriously injured and captured by terrorists, who imprison him and try to force him to build them a bomb. Stark represents most of the movie's comic book flights of fancy, where this man is such an engineering genius that he can, while in captivity in a cave and with little more than scrap metal to work with, fashion a form-fitting robotic suit of astonishing power and agility.
Iron Man is a unique superhero in that he was basically born out of Stark's need to escape from captivity. He's not a superhuman, just has super-human intelligence and engineering ability. Gwyneth Paltrow plays the curiously named Pepper Potts, Stark's secretary who is also secretly in love with him. Their relationship reminds me a bit of Moneypenny and James Bond. There is definitely something between them, but neither of them seems sure that it would be a good idea (or come to anything anyway) to pursue it.Stark's business partner, Obadiah Stane, also provides a unique antagonist presence. He is not a movie villain, he just has a different set of priorities. Most importantly, neither of them are cartoonishly heroic or villainous, and this is important in creating important characters.
If either of them had been exaggerated versions of themselves, the movie would have been much less effective. Every character has a very human element operating at their center, which gives the movie a great sense of realism. Only Stark is played as a bit over the top in certain ways, which is kind of a necessity in order to get us to believe that he could even conceive of the idea of building the Iron Man suit.My favorite thing about Iron Man is the lengths that the movie goes to to remain grounded in a reality that we can relate to. Even good suerhero movies, like The Dark Knight, take place in a world that is similar to ours but very different in some key ways that make it difficult to view them as anything other than comic book entertainment. But Iron Man takes place in our world, with real people dealing with real problems. Granted, Tony Stark is a billionaire super-genius, but ultimately, in more ways than one, he is only human.
The Bean Meter
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