I Am (Almost) Iron Man

Rating: 8/10 (2 May 2008)

At just over two hours, Iron Man packs in a lot of story, a lot of gadgetry, a lot of special effects and a lot of everything every other superhero movie throws at you to get your $12. But was it worth every penny? Yes and no.
As I mentioned in my last Iron Man post, IM was one of my two favorite comic books when I was a kid. I actually own IM #2, although its probably worthless since its nearly in tatters. What I liked about IM was it was somewhat grounded in reality. In other words, Tony Stark was a real guy elevated to being a badass only because he was capable of building a badass suit. The other thing I liked about Stark were his flaws...and he had a lot of them.
I went into the theater today with very high expectations. The trailers gave me glimpses of everything I liked about the comic book and perhaps even a lot more. But having ridiculously high expectations, it is pretty hard to ever be blown away. The truth is, I never felt blown away by IM and the reason I wasn't was simply because it was too much like every other comic book hero movie I've ever seen and I wanted it to be more.
There is no question the gadgetry and techo porn in this movie was on hyperdrive and every time Stark was engineering his wares, I was there with him, wanting to be him, wanting to play with his toys (please don't read into that). Everything about Stark exudes cool: the gadgets, the clothes, the women, the cars, the house and yes, the attitude. This movie will do very well at the box office simply because it is wish fulfillment for every single guy with a hard drive and a hard on, which is damn near every heterosexual male in America (if not the world).
But where this movie let me down is an area that might make me the worst person to have a fair opinion on this movie: I wanted it to do something completely different, I wanted it to redefine the genre. While it definitely ups the ante in terms of gadgetry, tech and special FX, it follows the same story arc that every other super hero movies follows: man undergoes metamorphosis, man reinvents himself, man sets out to right the world's wrongs, man is confronted by other man or entity who represents every thing that is wrong with the world, man battles foe in herculean climax scene, movie ends. Sure IM quite possibly is the mastery of this formula, but it didn't leave me feeling satisfied.
As for the performances in the film, Robert Downey Jr is perfect. Knowing his personal past, we can see the parallel he shares with Tony Stark, trading in a life of excess for a rebirth into a stronger, more moral and more important person. Jeff Bridges oozes evil right down to the way he slurps at his scotch. Terrence Howard on the other hand is wall paper, barely noticeable and utterly bland. Gwyneth Paltrow convinced me of one thing: she is not a strong actor.
Director Jon Favreau does a great job emulating the IM comic book world, packing this film full of thrills, eye candy and laughs. What I found most effective about this world is that it seems entirely plausible. Who knows, with the continuing advancements in tech, perhaps one day an engineer will build a real world Iron Man suit and when it rears its head in this ugly world, then and only then will there be an IM story worthy of my high expectations.
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