Greetings, Shubs and Zuuls!
(A free shout-out in my next article to the first person that gets that reference.)
It’s Thursday again, and time for more rumblings from The Office of the Don. This week, I will review the new Iron Man movie.
As all of you know, Iron Man is a character featured in Marvel Comics – a millionaire playboy named Tony Stark who is the head of a multi-million dollar weapons manufacturing company. After getting kidnapped and suffering a severe heart injury, Stark was forced to build an incredible suit of armor in order to keep him alive. Over time, the armor has gone through many modifications. Stark himself no longer needs the armor to keep himself alive, but continues to don the hi-tech suit to fight crime, run S.H.I.E.L.D., force people to register their secret identities with the government, and to get drunk.
Oh wait… he doesn’t do that last one anymore. But he certainly does the previous two with raucous aplomb.
So, how does the movie stack up? Let me give you some insight as to where I’m coming from first:
I was born in a small town in Connec—oops. Too far back. Let’s take you back to my first article for Spwug. As you recall, I’m a big comic book fan. Spider-Man has always been my favorite. One of the things that has always appealed to me about Spidey has been the fact that his abilities were apart of him. He is Spider-Man. At the end of the day, he can’t just remove those powers. Although he’s tried (and occasionally succeeded) many times.
Iron Man, on the other hand, gets all of his powers and abilities through his armor. I’ve never been a big fan of artificial abilities like that. When he takes off his armor, he is completely vulnerable. And usually drunk (but not any more). Add to that the fact that Iron Man has never had a really great rogues gallery like Spidey, Hulk, or any of the other mainstream Marvel superheroes, and you have a character and a title that both leave me cold.
So needless to say, I came to this movie with the feelings of one who doesn’t even care for the character.
And then the movie handed me my ass and made me carry it around while sucker-punching me repeatedly in the kidneys.
This movie was outstanding! The film’s weight is almost carried on Robert Downey Jr.’s shoulders alone. And he’s up to the task. The man exudes charm and charisma. I don’t think any one else could have done the character justice. He is able to convincingly take a character who is a total jackass and make him lovable. Then he breaks that man down through his journey into personal tragedy and builds him back up through redemption. And that act makes you love him even more. He steals every scene he’s in, and it almost seems like every other character who shares screen time with him feeds off that energy and gives off better performances themselves.
That’s not to say that the other actors are slouches. Far from it. Terrence Howard brings a fresh perspective to the character of James Rhodes. Jeff Bridges proves the man can do evil, and do it well. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him play an evil character like Obediah Stane, but he kills this role. And I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed Gwyneth Paltrow in anything. She really shines here as Tony’s assistant Pepper Potts.
In fact, that’s one of the things that I really liked about this movie - it didn’t fall into the standard Hollywood cliché of automatically pairing up the male and female lead in an automatic romance. This movie, in fact, bucks it intentionally. It keeps throwing the characters together in scenes where, in any other film, they would already be on their way to second base. Iron Man instead gives you the set-up, then throws the water on the flames - oftentimes to comedic effect.
Which leads me to the writing and direction. Both are top-notch. The pacing and character development are handled perfectly. A lot of film adaptations based on a comic or book series have a difficult time in their first installment just getting through the origin. Iron Man doesn’t seem to have any trouble at all. You’re kept so amused or amazed throughout the whole film that you forget that you’re even seeing an origin unfolding. And Favreau’s directing, already proven to be spectacular from films like Elf and Zathura, continues to prove he has the chops to take on such an endeavor like Iron Man. This guy has come a long way since Swingers. He has an incredible eye for visual framing, as well as a great talent for stage direction. This movie feels natural and organic, like you aren’t even watching a movie at all, but instead viewing someone’s life unfold in front of you. Well, if that life had armored heroes and giant armored villains battling all over the west coast.
Overall, Iron Man is a nice reminder that Marvel still knows what it’s doing, despite the less-than-stellar results of the past couple of movies that have come from The House of Ideas. Iron Man is a great movie that focuses on the redemption of a man. It’s also a great superhero move as well.
I want to drop one last bit of knowledge on you. This is the first movie to be made specifically by Marvel Studios. While the previous movies based on Marvel properties were in their own self-enclosed world, this is the movie that officially gives birth to the Marvel Universe on film. And you feel it, too. You can just feel that while Tony is trashing bozos in his armor, somewhere there is a man struggling to contain the gamma-irradiated beast within, or that there’s a school for gifted youngsters somewhere in New York. And be patient, my geeky friends. That’s what Marvel is aiming for. In fact, you may not have seen the last of Tony Stark this summer.
Oh, and take the “initiative” to stay until after the end credits of Iron Man. You will be rewarded.
The Don is a cool exec with a heart of papier-mâché.
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