'Iron Man'
reviewed by Lon S. Cohen

Standing in my kitchen after viewing Iron Man on opening night, I had the strange sense that something was terribly wrong. Earlier I had taken my teenaged son to see the movie, leaving my wife at home. That wasn’t the problem. The problem lay in the question. The same question we all have to endure after returning home from movie night to the babysitter, the mother-in-law or your significant other: “How was it?”

For the first time in a long while, I couldn’t answer that question right off. Usually I have some opinion straight away, either I liked it or I didn’t. Either I agreed with the premise or I found it contrived. But in the end, Iron Man left me, well, flat.

There I said it. Against all the mainstream media press and previews and accolades, I was not as thoroughly impressed as I expected to be, given the high anticipation and advanced press.

Iron Man, the movie, tracks the life of one Tony Stark – industrialist, inventor, genius, billionaire and wise-cracking, playboy – from his heights as a ambivalent military weapons supplier to his downward spiral into becoming hostage to terrorists brandishing his own weapons against him and then up again to a redeemed idealistic superhero, loved by women and children in first and third-world countries alike. (No mention is made of second-world countries in the movie but one expects that women and children there like him equally as well.)

Right off, the movie is everything that it’s supposed to be: a heavy metal, action packed adventure full of blood and guts, gadgets and jokes, betrayal and redemption. Stark falls victim to what seems to be a random roadside attack while accompanying the military to one of his company’s weapons displays in Afghanistan and is taken hostage. While a captive, the terrorists ‘encourage’ him to construct one of his famous smart bombs from stolen parts. (Stark is not only an industrialist but a super-genius as well.) While there, he befriends another hostage and the two hatch a plan to escape, with Stark’s part being to build and wear a giant, metal suit of armor, loaded to the teeth with weaponry like rockets and flame throwers. The other guy’s job is to help, distract the terrorists at all times, and die on cue.

Here was the first mistake. I rather thought that this other hostage would have made a very good addition to Stark’s personal conflict in the story, as the man whom Stark rescued from the pits of hell and who owes him his life and service. A man who could then provide the balance and grounding for Stark as he slowly begins to realize the errors of his former life. A man who himself is a scientist with a family that depends on him, but knows he must sacrifice to put things right.

Instead, we get Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), whose motivation is, what? Pure sexual desire for her boss?

After an exciting battle scene where the Steam Punkish looking Iron Man destroys the terrorists and is plucked from the sands of the desert, Stark’s first task is to order up an obvious advertiser-sponsored BK Whopper. He then goes about announcing, without any warning to stockholders or board of directors, that his company, Stark Industries, is now out of the weapons business.

This causes the requisite uproar from the press and of course the suspicious corporate partner Obadiah Stane, played perfectly in both his acting ability and physical appearance by Jeff Bridges. The way Bridges cradles his cigar, he exudes evil conspiracy through every smoke exhalation. If only American Vice President Dick Chaney were so deliciously personable in his subversiveness, then perhaps I might forgive him for his misdeeds.

The Tony Stark/Obadiah Stane relationship was suspiciously familiar to me. Stark, a former hard-driving, charismatic, rich-boy, living in the shadow of his successful father and the older partner in business who seems to have steered the younger man, with so much unrealized potential, down a dark path into the politics and business of warmongering. Except that this story has a cheerier ending, with the younger man eventually realizing his own power and ability to change things for the better by utilizing his god-given strengths, once the scales have fallen from his eyes, of course.

Back to the story. When Stark finds that the corporate ship will take a very long time to turn around and point in the direction of his newfound idealism and general love for humanity, he withdraws into his home laboratory to build a super-high tech version of the primitive Iron Man suit he built in the caves of Afghanistan. This time he means to set things right personally.

The suit building sequences are full of all the CG, Geekish, fanboy stuff that makes this movie worth watching. Downey is a brilliant actor and one whose wit and darkness come out in equal parts, making the interstitial, requisite hero-building portion of an origin story thoroughly watchable. He’s one of the rare actors, who, given anything to say, will do it in such a way that you forget what the movie is supposed to be about. He doesn’t transcend the role so much as wrap the character around his personality and make it his own, as if he were born to play Tony Stark/Iron Man. A rare and admirable ability in an actor. Even when he’s being wrapped up, poked, prodded and scolded by some great CG effects sequences.

Up to this point, I’m still with them. I am rapt. I am convinced that the pay-off will be big and dramatic. But I quickly find myself disappointed. And this is why it’s so hard to answer the question, “How was it?”

The actors have done a brilliant job. There is not one in the bunch who hasn’t at one time or another been considered for, acted in a movie worthy of, or actually won an academy award, and deservedly so. None of them phone it in either, taking each character and making it plausible. The dialogue is snappy and believable. John Favereu does a good job of directing, taking his first big blockbuster and doing admirably with it, especially for a summer opener.

The problem is that very soon, the movie goes formulaic. It’s a good formula, but not an original one. All the actors find their place and march, lock step, to the conclusion of the story. It was not a bad thing, but a bit of a letdown. I felt there were characters and stories left by the wayside that may have ratcheted up the personal tension in the climax. Instead, we’re given a villain who got what he deserved and a hero who gets the damsel-in-distress in the end.

There were true moments of greatness in this film. There was a naïve, idealistic, wishfulness to the story where right and wrong were clearly defined. The bad guys show their true colors from the beginning with every evil sneer and cigar chomping scene and the good guys wear perfectly pressed military garb and colorful armored suits. They practically outfitted Pepper Potts in a petticoat, for goodness sake.

In today’s world of grey, debate on Western world’s role in the future of global politics, and our endless mire of conflict in the Middle East, this movie offers a rosy picture that clearly plays on wish-fulfillment, where Iron Man can redeem our poor choices and be finally welcomed with open arms as a saviour, the way we expected to be all those years ago; a post-modern fairytale.

While all that is good for the soul, maybe I feel that Iron Man disappointed a little because it could have paid a little more attention to its own legacy and mythos, rather than spending so much time trying to reflect the real world’s through rose-colored glasses.

Upon a second viewing I’m sure that the movie will become more endearing. But I suspect that the now confirmed sequel will deliver more action and a deepening of the mythos. While this movie left me a little flat, I have to say that it also made me hopeful for the future. Which is something, at least.