Action sequences; comedy; gross-out scenes; sexual tension complete with feint romance and a battle of good vs. evil sees Iron Man waver but just about hit the mark.

Rating: 6/10 (2 August 2009)

The last time I saw a fictional superhero in a red and gold get-up flying through the air and generally trying its best to 'wow' and entertain a crowd, must've been in that 1996 Schwarzenegger Christmas comedy entitled Jingle All the Way. Thankfully, Iron Man is a little better but it additionally made me daydream about what it might've been like had Tony Stark (Downey, Jr.), the ever present lead in the film, ever stumbled across the two camp hit men from 1971's Diamond Are Forever, you know: the one's that flit around, killing people here and there while philosophising about certain ponderous subjects that come compete with quotes like: "If God had intended man to fly, then he'd have given him wings." Rather immediately, we can assume Tony Stark be the sort of man to think outside the proverbial box; he doesn't just want to fly, he wants to do it without the wings – bizarre, all-over-the-place-colour-scheme and all.
For what it's worth, Iron Man isn't particularly that bad. It covers a tale, indeed a plight, of one small; relatively thin; harmless looking; eccentric even, and soft bodied man of whom represents something far larger, overpowering and powerful in Stark Enterprises, which is Tony's company that he's inherited from his father. Iron Man begins with one of those annoyingly quaint VT sequences, the sort that exists solely to inform us of what's going on; the sort that crams in years, sometimes decades, worth of predicament and event purely so that it can fast-track all the necessary back-log and get to this point in these person's lives. From just about here, it dives headfirst into Afghanistan and presents us with this rich, life loving and seemingly psychologically spotless hero as he merrily romps his way through the desert with the United States Army. Only, the convoy is attacked and Tony is taken captive.
First and foremost, Stark is an arms dealer of sorts. He creates weapons so that others may use them for destructive and ill-advised purposes. When it transpires Stark is attacked by his own weapons, there is a moment of clarity that tells our lead that things must change; and that means risking loosing all the close-to-unwatchably-bad content/lifestyle just prior to him flying out to The Middle East. The cheery and sugary scenes of the pompous Stark milling about with reporters, women and extravagant events as he indulges in nights out at the casino and one night stands comes across as woefully inept but tactfully so; simultaneously providing us with a point of attack that gets across what Stark is like but also providing us with a certain wrong belief that is instilled within the lead, something that resembles a gung-ho, "nuke 'em now" policy that will change.
Iron Man is competent enough, but I wonder if director Jon Favreau is fit for this sort of material. Stark's realisation of what it is he actually does and what it is he actually contributes to in the world feels underplayed, while his shooting of an Afghan cave system in which Stark is held hostage, and forced into building a weapon of mass destruction, looks less grotty; grimy; undesirable and unpleasant then it does a themed entrance to 'the underground zone' at a theme park complete with cheap, plastic cave walls and fake sand. There is a distinct, but uneven, feel to this segment of the film; an acceptance that this is what's being done, and this is the study being made; but a biting feeling that had the budget been halved and the picture looked less colourful and less polished, we might be feeling the pain with the lead a little more.
It's in and around that prison cave system that Stark realises he won't be building any more weapons, so rather than do that, he stumbles across the idea of building a seemingly indestructible suit made of iron that, essentially and perhaps ironically, he will use in combat later on and thus render a weapon of sorts. I think a lot of Iron Man would like to be about the deployment of weapons to other nations by more powerful nations. Stark, being an American and being the head of an all powerful American organisation that ISN'T the government, and his actions recall the giving of Stinger Missile launchers to the Afghans to use against the invading Soviets during The Cold War, and how, in 2003; that news footage of a ground Afghan using a Stinger Missile launcher against an American plane rather eerily comes back to tarnish that decision. By the end of the film, Stark hasn't perfected a weapon as much as he has modernised a suit of some sort that aids in the attempting of ridding the world of those that mis-use these weapons.
But slightly interesting study aside, the film is not without reservations. The audaciously named Pepper Potts is played in agonising; not unwatchable, but close, fashion by Gwyneth Paltrow; while a lot, and I mean a lot, of time is reserved for the development of the iron suit which itself involves testing, tests failing and a lot of dumb slapstick humour. The typically British, and-thus-intelligent, computer in Jarvis (Bettany) is a nonsense inclusion as is the manner in which one such Afghan sacrifices himself in order to aid Stark in his getting out of a predicament, which is a little off key. The film may be a large, loud and somewhat dumb at times production, but it's aiming for that in the first place. The fact it has a degree of substance running just below it, calling into question one's morals amongst a few other things, helps elevate the film slightly but it's underwhelming and quite daft in the long run.