Robert Downey Jr. forges “Iron Man” into a blockbuster

Bad boy Robert Downey Jr. has a sobering experience riding back from a demonstration of his firm’s newest weapon of mass destruction in Iron Man.

     When his “Funvee” caravan is ambushed, Downey is conscripted to build the Jericho Missile for an Afghan terrorist group. Instead, he forges a new image for himself from the technologically well-appointed cave where he’s imprisoned.
     Jeff Bridges shines as Obadiah Stane and later as the villain Iron Monger (though he’s no Norman Osborn) but supporting cast members Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrence Howard are wasted in their token roles.
     There’s a modicum of humor (Stan Lee’s cameo is greeted with, “You look great, Hef”) and Mayo cardiologists will find inspiration in the miniature arc reactor.
     On the superhero film spectrum, Iron Man comes in well to the right of disappointments like Hulk and Daredevil and just to the left of genre apexes Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2. It is easily the best film of the year thus far and worth seeing again (especially if you didn’t stay for the end credits the first time).

3 Honks

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MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and brief suggestive content.

Comments

[Scott]

I'd challenge the Med City Movie Guy anytime to reviews. Honks? Are you kidding? Here was mine that was posted on my movie site, www.minnesotamoviefreak.com:

When wealthy industrialist Tony Stark is forced to build an armored suit after a life-threatening incident, he ultimately decides to use its technology to fight against evil. Robert Downey Jr. leads a great cast in the first of the summer blockbusters to hit theaters in 2008. It always seems that the summer movies start earlier each year. The first this year was released on May 2nd and it is a good one to kick start the season.

Superhero/comic book movies are among the hardest genres of film to do well, so when one comes along that succeeds, it deserves to be praised. So many heroes are 2 dimensional, leaving the audience with a "couldn't care less" attitude about the lead role they should be rooting for. The successful movies in this genre (Spiderman, Superman and now Iron Man - whoah, maybe the secret should be having "man" in the title) are few and far between, but all share the commonality of adding humanity to the situation as well as the characters.

These films are so difficult to pull off because we've seen them many times before. When I sit down to watch a mystery movie, I have no clue during the opening credits what is going to happen. I'm curious who the killer might be and struggling to understand the mystery. This makes for a semi-easy genre to produce. All a mystery director needs to do is keep the mystery interesting throughout and have a good reveal. In a genre such as Iron Man, I know as I'm purchasing my tickets how the movie will go. I know that there will be a good guy, a friend of the good guy, a girl in the good guy's life, a bad guy, some special effects and an inevitable battle between the good and bad guy that will result in a victory by the good guy, albeit a close call for sure. So how do you tell the same story over and over successfully? Ask Iron Man's director, Jon Favreau, because he has pulled it off beautifully.

Iron Man is a good time at the movies in a time in our country where a good time needs to be had by many. Robert Downey Jr. leaves a stamp on Tony Stark making you question if anyone else could have played him. The supporting cast of the film, including Academy Award nominee Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges are all stellar in their roles. The real winner in this film is the story, which is as solid a Marvel-spawned script as you may ever see, in my mind beating Spiderman. The story is believable in every way. Favreau does a fantastic job of weaving the talented actors, wonderful screenplay adaptation and tight special effects together into a superhero gem. There were moments in this film where I was just smiling at the magic on the screen. Usually you have to wait until mid-July to get a summer blockbuster that entertains on all level. This year, summer started early.

Overall Rating: A