The TV Addict 

There’s no shortage of things that work well in IRON MAN. It’s stunningly well paced and plotted, finding the proper balance between the action and the dramatic, and propelling the story along without anything ever dragging or become excessive. The special effects are accomplished, and the action sequences are efficiently and often deliriously staged, even it means just watching with sheer exhilaration (shared by our protagonist) as Tony Stark flies around in his suit.
Even things that shouldn’t work do. Robots with personalities in the film avoid becoming cheesy family-film material. Terrence Howard plays little more than a one-dimension supporting character who seems eerily omnipresent, but his friendly rapport with Downey Jr. and the sense that you feel there a bigger plans for his character make it okay. Pepper Potts, Stark’s super secretary should also be nothing more than a patriarchal stereotype, but (to borrow Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman’s dead-on observation) the adorable looking Gwyneth Paltrow “manages the neat trick of taking a character who’s a pre-feminist throwback and playing her with a liberated twinkle.”

However, what makes IRON MAN such a good film is its protagonist transformation. At the onset of the film Tony Stark is an inventive boy-wonder, a genius rock-star infatuated with his own cockiness. He heads a weapons manufacturer company that is intent on preserving democracy by providing the American army with the means of putting down the “bad guys,” without bothering about the moral ramifications. He’s sarcastic, prone to drink, and uses his natural charm and good looks to get any women into bed that he can. While giving a weapons demonstration of a new missile in Afghanistan he is wounded and captured, and put to work by terrorists who want the missile for themselves. There his naiveté is burst when he sees his weapons have found their way into the hands of “the bad guys,” and learns a little humility when his life is saved by a fellow captive, Yinsen (a marvelous Shaun Toub). He devises a suit to escape, does so, and returns home somewhat of an active pacifist, declaring that his company no longer will manufacture weapons, but privately builds an iron man suit that will enable him to make a moral difference.

The reason the film becomes so gripping from that point on is that not only do we witness Tony Stark aspire to something more, all the work he puts into designing the Iron Man suit (in some of the best sequences of the film) lets us know just how dedicated he is to that decision. No disrespect to heroes like Daredevil, Spider-Man or the X-Men, but they have their powers simply happen to them, and then it’s just a matter of realizing a sense of obligation, that “with great power comes great responsibility.” Tony Stark becomes a superhero through sheer force of will and creative invention, motivated by – unlike Batman, another non-powered superhero – not revenge, but a moral imperative to fix a bad situation, but mostly because he wants to have fun. In other words, he becomes a hero, but without really changing his fundamental personality, only some of his moral beliefs. So, unlike all the other superheroes, there’s no angst here, no naval-gazing dwelling on the burdens of being superhero. Tony Stark does it because it’s fun, and because it gives his creative intellect one more avenue to push boundaries in. When after a successful thruster test he says to himself, “Yeah, I can fly,” it’s as much a celebration of a normal guy realizing he can do something insanely fun, as it is of an inventor knowing he made something inconceivable, conceivable.

It’s the same sort of spirit that the filmmakers themselves infuse into the film. It’s filled with style and a sheer sense of joy – something a bit rare in Hollywood summer blockbusters – but never so much that the material feels like it isn’t getting the dramatic respect it occasionally deserves. It has, for lack of a better word, pizzazz.

Naturally a good deal of that comes directly from Robert Downey Jr., who – much like the device placed in the centre of Tony Stark that powers his suit – is the central power source of the film. By now you’ve read countless reviews about how he’s pitch perfect as Tony Stark, and it’s true. The reason everything I’ve praised above works – the transformation, the fun, etc. – is because of him. In a strange way, it’s a role that Downey Jr. was born to play, as it’s perfect for him in terms of being a role he can play, but also a role that perfectly suits his personality. And though it may be an outlandish claim to make for someone starring in a superhero movie, I think Downey Jr. deserves – as of this moment anyway – an Academy Award nomination for his efforts.

Perhaps the only gripe I can muster is that despite giving an effective and quietly menacing performance throughout the film, Jeff Bridges devolves into something of a comic-book villain in the end, prone to hyperbolized moustache-twirling, and grand over-blown speeches. Then again, he is a comic-book villain, and a superhero film requires that to an extent for its protagonist to persevere and prove that he is, well, a hero, so it’s not really a huge complaint, especially when the conflict yield such a cool final fight.

In the end, I realized it’s rare that I leave a two-hour film, not only feeling like time flew by, but thinking sadly: “That’s it? There’s no more?” Faced with the inevitable answer, I was left with the final and most important question: is IRON MAN the best superhero movie ever? Is it better than BATMAN BEGINS, SPIDER-MAN 2 or X-MEN 2?
Well, more on that next week after I’ve seen IRON MAN again.

Overall rating: A