IRON MAN (Jon Favreau, 2008) ***

Rating: 7/10 (6 May 2008)

As I was growing up, one of my main sources of entertainment (not to mention education) was Italian TV which is where I caught several of the now-classic animated TV series based on Marvel comics superheroes like Captain America, Hulk, Iron Man, Spiderman, Submariner, Thor, X-Men, etc. It goes without saying that, with time, these were turned into movies and, in some cases, highly successful franchises. This year was Iron Man's turn to hit the big screen and, happily, it turned out to be one of the best such adaptations.
The primary reason for the superior end result is one: Robert Downey Jr. is an inspired choice for leading man and he meets the blockbusting challenge head-on with a terrific, nuanced central performance that makes Tony Stark a believably three-dimensional character. It is reported that Downey was a fan of the original comic books themselves and that his contribution to the film was a far more creative one than is usual for actors and it shows. His extensive commitment may also have been triggered by the fact that, for all intents and purposes, the life story of Tony Stark uncannily parallels that of Downey himself: a talented person living in the shadow of his famous father who wastes his time away in hedonistic abandon until a traumatic experience set his priorities right and well onto his way to full rehabilitation.
A hero is only as good as his nemesis and, in this case, Jeff Bridges' duplicitous business partner comes up trumps. Perhaps wisely, his bald-headed, goateed villain is not the overacted, larger-than-life type but a sleek, ruthless profiteer whose line of work happens to be the proliferation of warfare around the world. Equally important for superheroes are their girlfriends and here Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts is the sweet, sensitive secretary rather than the usual on/off damsel-in-distress. Also on hand is the sidekick in the shape of Terence Howard's army official and the eccentric lab assistant who – as a sign of the times – is an Afghan family man who has been taken prisoner by an ambitious war lord! Leslie Bibb's blonde bimbo reporter is worth mentioning as well not only for her looks but even for the way in which her character unconsciously spurs Stark onwards to first adopt a conscience and, atypically for a superhero, reveal Iron Man's true identity at the very end.
For a modern Hollywood blockbuster which has its eyes firmly on becoming a lucrative franchise, IRON MAN is a literate movie with only a handful of action set-pieces which, needless to say, deliver the goods when they do come. In fact, the film's middle section is taken up by Stark's various experiments with perfecting his equipment, refining the look of Iron Man and, amusingly, his love/hate relationship with his clumsy robotic assistant. If there is one major flaw in the film, it's the climactic assumption that businessman Jeff Bridges is as much technologically-minded as his junior partner in creating and working iron giants – especially when just moments earlier his employees seemed at a loss at coming up with anything resembling the capacities of Iron Man let alone tower over them as his Iron Monger eventually does. Anyway, it's small fry, I guess, when their climactic rooftop confrontation was, as they say, destined to happen from the outset.
A frustrating modern trend in movies is that of continuing it after the credits have already started rolling and, apparently, IRON MAN is guilty of this fallacy as well – although, personally, I wouldn't know as I walked out of the theater right after the cast list was over! Anyhow, the film-makers have to be complemented for not taking the obvious route by making excessive use of Black Sabbath's classic titular song except for maximum effect i.e. Downey's (and the film's) closing lines being, "I am Iron Man" and an instrumental passage as soon as the end credits kick in.