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Well-grounded superhero?
Big cheers for 'Iron Man'
of TheColumnists.com
How sweet it is to finally have a comic book-inspired movie superhero who comes from Earth, has no super-powers, doesn't conceal his not-so-secret identity, has an Oscar-winning girl friend who's taller than he is--AND has an African-American pal who doesn't sound like a hip-hop street thug.
Yes, we're talking about "Iron Man," the latest in a long series of new movie heroes from Marvel Comics. He's great. I love him. And I want his girl friend.
"Iron Man" didn't arrive with very high expectations. The comic is nowhere near as popular as Marvel's "Spider Man" or most of those "X-Men" mutants or "Fantastic Four" weirdo people. Basically, he's just RoboCop with a guy inside, pushing the right buttons. Nothing special. Lots of false starts have been announced for this movie over the past decade, so it sort of seemed like nobody really wanted to get down to actually doing it for the screen.
But director Jon Favreau surprised everybody by turning in a first-rate, wholly-entertaining movie that's already a box office smash hit. It's so hot right now that plans are already in the works for "Iron Man 2" and the character will be back as part of an all-star superhero team movie based on the comic series known as "The Avengers." (No, not the one with Mr. Steed and Emma Peel. Somebody already ruined that concept on the big screen.)
What's so good about "Iron Man"? Well, let's start with Favreau's plan to recruit top quality actors. Robert Downey, Jr., may have been in and out of drug rehab programs for the past several years, but nobody ever accused him of not knowing how to act As Tony Stark, bored, self-indulgent billionaire heir to an arms manufacturing empire, Downey is superbly credible. He may be playing himself there on the screen. And when he vows to change his life, making it more useful than just giving people the means to kill each other, one sees the glint of reality in his eyes. It's as if Downey is telling us, "Believe this guy. I've been there. I know all about re-starting your life."
And though the immensely talented Paltrow, Oscar winner for 1998's "Shakespeare in Love," doesn't have a career-enhancing role as Stark's personal secretary, Virginia "Pepper" Potts, she turns it into one. Her expressive eyes say so much more than the stilted dialogue. She's pulling for this man to redeem himself, even if it shakes her world along with his.
Even better is Jeff Bridges as nasty Obadiah Stane, the munitions executive who decides to erase Iron Man from the picture by beating him at his own game--turning himself into a bigger, bossier metal monster he calls Iron Monger. If you still think of Bridges as the handsome guy of "Starman," "Texasville" or "The Fisher King," prepare yourself for a major shock. He's now bald, bearded and pot-bellied. And he's twisted all that nice guy imagery of the past until you can't imagine you ever liked this man at all. Finally, Terrence Howard, who was the hip-hop dude you liked so much in "Hustle and Flow" (doing that Oscar-winning song about how tough things are these days for pimps), gives himself a chance to play a legitimate good guy, a jet fighter pilot who stands by his pal, the billionaire everybody else thinks has sprung a leak where all his cranial fluid is running out.
Giving these fine actors the chance to inhabit comic book characters was a brilliant notion because they all breathe a completely different kind of life into the characters than there ever was on paper.
"Iron Man" is about what happens to Stark when he's snatched by Afghan rebels who want him to build a nuclear missle for them. Instead, he uses scrap iron and computer chips to build himself a giant metal suit that's bullet and grenade proof, has built-in machine guns and can touch off a rocket motor that fires him out of the cave he's held prisoner in and sails him way into the desert beyond.
Hailed for his miracle escape, Stark becomes an instant recluse, launching into a new campaign to build a stronger, more flexible "Iron Man" suit he can wear to fight evil and win wars. When he announces his company is getting out of the business of weaponry, it's a red light to people like Obadiah Stane, who want to consolidate their own power before Stark shuts down their principal source of wealth and influence.
Watching Stark develop his super-weapon in secrecy is fascinating--and the action scenes are amazingly convincing. But, every step of the way, "Iron Man" is an intelligent picture that doesn't insult you by descending all the way down into comic book hell. You're as excited as you might be watching Spider Man, but you don't have to sit through all those scenes with the nerdy secret identity of Spider Man nor put up with his insipid girl friend.
I'll hurry back to see more of "Iron Man" for all the reasons above and the good news is that Downey loves the character and wants to keep playing him. What's more, Paltrow signed up for at least two sequels, so the I.Q. level of the movies is bound to remain at least higher than normal for the time being.
Will they succumb to having him battle outer space bad guys or monsters from the ocean floor? I hope not. I have a long list of real-life evils I'd like to see a tough metal guy flatten out good. In fact, I'm thinking of sending Iron Man that list of names, starting with Rush Limbaugh, O.J. Simpson and George Steinbrenner.
©2008 by Ron Miller. The "Iron Man" poster is courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Marvel Productions. This column first posted May 12, 2008.
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