After a brief spring hiatus it's time for me to get back into the swing of things with the summer movie season, and what better way to kick things off than with Iron Man?1997's Batman & Robin was a movie so singularly bad it ended a franchise, a number of careers, and nearly destroyed the comic book movie as a genre. It also took a toll on me, at the time just a young boy who loved movies and superheroes. It was a movie going experience that has stayed with me forever, a scar that won't quite go away. I bear that scar every time I go to see a superhero movie, making it very hard to unabashedly love them. At the first sign of whimsy or cuteness I run for the hills. I hate every Spider-Man movie, can't stand the Fantastic 4 series, and barely tolerate the first and third X-Men. Indeed, the only superhero movie I have loved with all my heart since 1997 is Batman Begins, perhaps because it was made specifically to be the antithesis of Schumacher's abomination. It is with that baggage that I approached Iron Man, a movie I couldn't quite get behind, but saw signs of great things to come within.
Iron Man is not exactly one of the top tier superheroes. That holy trinity seems to be Batman, Spider-Man, and Superman - three icons that everyone know. I went into this film knowing very little about the Iron Man character, his mythos, or rogues gallery. In a way that seems to work to the film's benefit. Usually you know exactly what you're getting from a film about the Holy Trinity because they've carved out such specific places in our culture that they can't really deviate. Iron Man has no such place in our society, so the film is free to do things we've not yet seen in a superhero movie, playing with the ideas of keeping your identity a secret, who a superhero should protect, and how it should be done.
Robert Downey Jr is a great choice to play a wisecracking, womanizing, alcoholic billionaire weapons manufacturer. While he seems a bit reigned in compared to some of his greatest performances, his charm and charisma is the single best aspect of the film. I'd be surprised if he doesn't get a similar popularity boost to the one Johnny Depp did after Pirates. To take a character who is so self-centered and egotistical and make you truly believe that he would want to save the world by film's end is no easy feat, but Downey sold me. The rest of the cast is well chosen, if given little to do. Terrence Howard is largely wasted as the best friend who clearly is there to set up his role in the sequel. Gwyneth Paltrow is wonderfully understated for most of the film, but she becomes a bit whiny towards the end of the film. And the great Jeff Bridges is an inspired choice for the villain - pity he is almost nonexistent for most of the run time. If Downey sold me on his character arc, Bridges was the exact opposite. He becomes the villain almost out of the film's necessity, not out of a clear path for his character. It felt like something that should have been developed throughout the film and then payed off in a sequel. The cast all work well together, though, and any problems they run into is a result of the script and not their acting.
Indeed, the script is the film's only true weakness, lacking any real direction. The first third of the film is great, as it sets up how Tony Stark is captured by terrorists using the very weapons he has been manufacturing. He sees what he has been doing to the world and decides to escape and set right what he'd done wrong. After that, though, it goes nowhere. He spends a great deal of time just working in his lab creating the suit we've all become familiar with. The final twenty minutes finally pick back up as a villain rises to challenge him. Those who were bored by the lack of Batman in the first hour of Batman Begins will be truly asleep here, as Iron Man is probably on screen for less than a fourth of the 2 hour run time.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this film is that Iron Man is not a hero out to save a city, like Batman or Spider-Man (or even Superman oftentimes). Instead, he has made it his mission to save the world. If given this incredible suit, would you go around town stopping thieves and muggers, or would you fly around the globe stopping terrorism? It makes for a more dynamic character, and raises interesting moral questions (should some American in a suit of armor be allowed to police the world?). It's not developed too deeply in this film, but it's clear that this is the direction the sequels will be going in.
Iron Man feels like a movie that was made simply to build up to the inevitably better sequel. It puts all the pieces in place and then says (figuratively) "To be continued." It's a film of individual great elements, but elements which are not allowed to all gel together. Perhaps I will never really be able to love a movie like this again, but I can see a lot to appreciate, and I think that Iron Man as a franchise has a great future, even if the inaugural installment wasn't perfect.
