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Iron Man
By
Keith Lucas
Downey, Jr. is
perfectly cast as Tony Stark in the visual spectacle Iron Man
Ever since
watching the Steve Rodgers led “Captain America” movie, I’ve never fully
trusted superhero flicks. The early Batman movies helped counter and
remove the taint that “Captain America” left on me. And, my childhood
probably would not have been the same without “Darkman.” However, after
Batman Returns, my distrust for superhero movies has remained
consistently. When Marlow Stansfield (of “The Wire”) said, “You want it
to be one way, but it’s the other way”; he pretty much summed up my
feelings about superhero movies. I tend to prefer for them to be a
certain way, but they typically are not. Generally, I prefer for
superhero flicks to have a compelling story fused in with the
“badassness” of incredible fight scenes. Some movies are able to combine
the two (Spiderman 2, X-Men 2, Batman Begins),
while others either have one (X-Men 3 = great fight scenes), or
none (Superman = boring). Achieving this feat is tough and rarely
accomplished. However, Iron Man was able to combine the two, and
essentially was made the way I envisioned.
Particularly, there are a few things that make this story compelling.
First, the characters are portrayed with precision. Robert Downey as
Tony Stark is probably one of the greatest casting choices in superhero
casting history (a close second is Arnold as Mr. Freeze). Simply put:
Robert Downey is Tony Stark. If you ever read any of the Iron Man
comics, you will know what I’m talking about. Robert Downey plays Stark
as we envisioned him all these years, and I’m not certain if that’s a
credit to Downey’s acting ability or Downey just being himself. Whatever
the case is, Downey makes me believe everything there is to believe
about Stark.
The
inclusion of Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane aka the Iron Monger was the
second greatest part about Iron Man. Bridges was phenomenal, and anyone
who remembers “The Dude” will agree that Bridges is a fantastic actor.
He is the prototypical super-villain (selfish, greedy, manipulative),
and exemplifies evil at its best. The cast was rounded out by Terrence
Howard, the robots, and Gwenyth Paltrow, who, as my friend pointed out,
“looked great in stilettos”. Along with a great cast, the story was both
simple and compelling. Without revealing too much, the story is about
Stark’s fight with his conscience over the place of his weapons, and how
this fight affects the reality of his business and relationship with
it. There are always two sides to our actions, and Stark’s realization
of the other side makes him question his original justification for
building weapons. The story builds (no pun intended) from there.
From a
technical standpoint, the film is comparable to the Spiderman and
X-Men movies. It’s visually stunning. The CGI of the Armor looks
great. Moreover, the scenes where he flies against the naval aircrafts
and fights Iron Monger are incredibly cool (I felt like a kid watching
them). The sound and editing was top notch as well. The opening fighting
scene in the desert was like an actual war movie with loud sounding guns
and explosives. Another plus is that they had some AC/DC to go along
with opening, and they showed a music video from none other than
Ghostface Killah from the Wu-Tang (who’s a huge fan of Ironman; just
check out his alias and debut album if you don’t believe). It will
certainly be a contender for sounds and visually effects and technical
production come awards season.
All in
all, if you are a superhero geek like me, then you will definitely enjoy
Iron Man. It’s a fun
movie, and there is a decent message embedded in the film. But, most
importantly, it starts the Ironman franchise on the right foot. I’m
hoping this is a sign of many good things to come out of the franchise,
but we don’t always get what we want.
***/****
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