Iron Man goes for the gold

New Marvel Comics movie sets the bar high for summer blockbusters

Honestly, I can’t remember when I’ve looked forward to a summer movie season as much as I’m anticipating this year’s. The release of a new Christopher Nolan Batman movie (The Dark Knight), a return to the adventures of Indiana Jones, and a number of inspired comedies (Pineapple Express, Get Smart, Tropic Thunder, etc.), should make this summer’s fare an easy victor over last year’s disappointing flicks (Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Spider-Man 3, Shrek 3, etc.).

The summer 2008 blockbuster season officially started last weekend with the release of Iron Man, based on the long-running popular Marvel Comics hero. Directed by Jon Favreau and starring Robert Downey Jr. in the title role, Iron Man delivers as an exhilarating, funny, and well-thought-out superhero adventure…one with more than a little heart and soul.

Downey stars as Tony Stark, billionaire playboy, inventor, and head of Stark Industries, the U.S. Government’s top weapons contractor. Since the death of his father, Tony has achieved celebrity status by protecting American military interests through the family company.

Tony’s cavalier lifestyle is thrown for a loop when his convoy is attacked following a Jericho Missile test in some unnamed Middle Eastern country. Held hostage by a group of insurgents from various countries, Tony is ordered to build a Jericho Missile for Raza (Faran Tahir), out of various Stark Industry weapons the insurgent group has on hand.

Instead, Tony uses the cave/laboratory to build a suit of armor that will enable him to escape captivity.

It’s pretty much at this stage of the movie that you have to suspend some strong feelings of disbelief. If you can do that, however, the payoff is substantial.

Upon his return to the United States, Tony decides to change Stark Industries’ goals from weapons design, to creating ways to protect innocent people from the very weapons he used to design. Despite resistance from the company’s top executive, Obadiah Stone (Jeff Bridges), Tony and his gal Friday, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), attempt to perfect the suit with some help from Tony’s military liaison, Rhodey (Terrence Howard).

Toward the end of the film, Tony uncovers some disturbing secrets that link his company to the insurgents, secrets that could have some dire consequences for the entire world.

Iron Man is as expertly cast a film as any I’ve seen this year. Downey is perfect as the smarmy skirt-chasing inventor, and the actor’s own bouts with self-destruction give Tony’s rehabilitation cinematic credibility. Paltrow, an actress who tends to be a little stiff in my opinion, is also well-cast as the nanny-esque Pepper, showing just enough vulnerability and humor to make the audience pull for her. She also has one of the best lines in the movie when she tells one of Tony’s one-night-stands that she is responsible for “taking out the trash.”

Bridges, a stoner favorite for his roles as The Dude in The Big Lebowski and Big Z in last year’s Surf’s Up, is nearly unrecognizable with his shaved head and gray beard. His transition from Tony’s confidante to his adversary is one of the few aspects of the movie that has a true story arc.

As good as Iron Man is, one gets the feeling that the sequel will be even better. This first film is burdened with the task of telling the audience how the superhero came into being, and as such nearly two-thirds of it is devoted to the building of the gold and red suit that can fly, shoot missiles, and utilize state-of-the-art computer technology. With that much effort devoted to back-story, it is hard to develop much of a storyline about evil-doers and their pernicious plots.

It has been interesting to watch Favreau grow in the film industry. A young actor who got his first break in Rudy, he made a name for himself as a screenwriter with the cult favorite comedy Swingers. In the past five years, however, Favreau has made a successful switch to directing big-budget special effects movies such as Elf and Zathura. He still manages to find himself in front of the camera and in addition to playing roles in The Break-Up and Wimbledon, he plays a wise-cracking bodyguard in Iron Man.

Favreau deserves much of the credit for successfully updating Iron Man from Stan Lee’s 1960s comic book hero to 21st century film franchise.

“The original story had to be redeveloped to reflect new technology and the changes in the political, social and economic landscapes in the world today,” said Favreau. “What Stan Lee wrote as science-fiction back in the 1960s is currently modern science. We have become so advanced that things you can buy in a drugstore now would have been the subject matter for a sci-fi film back in the days when Iron Man first entered the Marvel Universe.”

Iron Man is rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and brief suggestive content. It is currently playing at Regal Cinemas in Boone.