New Age Superhero

Rating: 8/10 (16 January 2009)

Iron Man is a superhero film for the new age. It is a visual ecstasy of a motion picture and may be death of fantasy-based superheroes. It isn't even a superhero movie at all really. It's more a science fiction picture which happened to originate from a comic book. I included it on my best films list of 2008 (which I will release someday), and I prefer it to The Dark Knight.
Tony Stark is a more "realistic hero" than Bruce Wayne could ever hope to be. His character, while part of the corporate world, actually appears affected by it. In the Batman films, Wayne Corp. is a mere backdrop for the action sequences. Great villains are used to cover up the problem, but it persisted until Batman Begins. No filmmaker has yet to effectively include real world concerns in Bruce's character like Jon Favreau does for Tony Stark.
Stark is a weapons-designing genius who sells his products to the US military. He travels to Afghanistan for a demonstration, and his entourage is attacked on the return. The assailants use his own weapons to subdue his escorting caravan. Tony's heart is pierced by shrapnel which could sink into his arteries any minute if he didn't have a weird battery thing protecting him. What does the shrapnel do while it floats in his chest? His captors say they will release him if he can design the weapon he demonstrated earlier. So he says yes, builds Robocop armor, and gets the heck out of there. Back home he is greeted by his super attractive maid Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and decides to remake the company's image. No more weapons. Shareholders, represented by Stark's mentor Obadiah Stane are upset, and the company's value falls by nearly half. Stark doesn't care about any of this and recreates his armor professionally. There are many sequences of Stark talking to his robotic assistants and chiding them for their perceived ineptitude. It keeps the movie true to its comic book conventions. Iron Man is a playfully serious movie that feels like a comic book. Comics are sure of themselves as legitimate literature but consistently tease it with silly language and crazy bad guy names. Iron Man chooses some of these elements to preserve but Favreau applies his hand to give a modern edge to it.
Stane learns of Tony's new project and contacts his private clients in Afghanistan about it. They are the same crooks from before and they want "an army of iron soldiers". Stane says no but begins designing his own prototype only to lose a confrontation with the real Iron Man. Stark finally reveals his status as the mysterious hero who is misnamed. Imagine the film's basic plot for a moment. The head of a powerful weapons development corporation manipulates his figurehead "boss" to sell product to terrorist in the Middle East. Stark learns about this firsthand and decides to do something about it. It's an idealized version of our invasion of Iraq.
Favreau made a great decision to cast Robert Downey Jr. as the titular character. Downey brings a subtle assurance to Stark. Downey delivers his lines so assuredly, as if he knew the effect he would have. If this movie was too self-indulgent, then his approach wouldn't work. Tony Stark would be too inhuman, like Mr. Fantastic. Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four movies is victim of his own film's ludicrousness. There is no way to interpret his character as anything other than a comic book convention. Like Favreau's earlier movie Zathura, Iron Man has impressive visual effects. The CGI is smooth enough to appear realistic. Even the ice which forms on Iron Man's helmet during a flight test is incredibly detailed. His mask is quickly covered in a layer of frost which melts as he falls. This idea is even incorporated in Stane's defeat.
This movie is indicative of an arising trend in superhero cinema. It's the not-so-super superhero. New heroes are just regular people who save humanity via artificial means. None of that "faster than a speeding bullet" gibberish is acceptable anymore, unless one is referring to Iron Man's top potential. I imagine that new fantasy superhero movies (a la The Flash) will have a built-in prejudice against them.