A Win for Tin Sinner
Iron Man (M)
The noughties continues to reign as rthe dace for tinpot superhero movies and the geek nerdboy fans who buy tickets to see 'em. In the case of Iron Man, however, they have expanded the possible audience by packing some serious acting muscle behind the costumes.
Like Dorothy’s metallic mate from The Wizard of Oz, the hero (or anti-hero) Iron Man, or at any rate, his altar ego, millionaire industrialist and munitions dealer Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr), is initially portrayed as a heartless, rather hollow chap. (Kinda what you’d expect from a mechanical genius turned robotics wunderkind who is scared of a real relationship.)
After he is kinapped and critically wounded, and literally has a ‘you beaut’ power pack embedded deep in his chest to keep him alive, even the densest of us filmgoers will ‘get’ the overt symbolism. Dur, Iron man has gootta find his heartsong of truth, justice and a more gentle American way .
For Tony’s emotionally absent, amoral party boy, life was a box of chocolate-coated candy girls. (Stark makes Batman’s altar ego, Bruce Wayne, look like a stay-at-home agoraphobic.) But with Stark’s, um, stark redemption as a human being (via the hand of Middle Eastern terrorists lurking in Afghanistan’s hills, who want him to build a ‘Jericho bomb’- it makes the walls come a tumblin’ down - we find a more likeable, more human character. The little boy lost is gaining some missing qualities.
Encased in robotic armour, Stark turns his back on the arms trade, fights his internal corporate enemies and starts to advance his friendship with platonic love interest, girl Friday, Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow).
While there is some fine work from Ms Paltrow, Terrence Howard as Stark’s military attaché, Colonel Jim Rhodes, and director Jon Favreau (as personal chauffeur Harold ‘Happy’ Hogan), the film belongs squarley to Downey Jr and Jeff Bridges as balded beardy Obadiah Stane, his dubious father figure and business associate (cue the boos).
With Hollywood’s production as hectic as ever, the need for mono-dimensional ‘baddies’ has branched out in the past decade, with Middle Eastern henchmen superseding communists (Iron Man’s original comic-book foes), Nazis, Mafiosi, Redcoats, American Indians etc. While Iron Man’s plot suggests a dodgy alliance of Afghanis, Russians and Iraqis, the film strikes a more intelligent note by showing villainy also resides squarely in the US’ military industrial complex and principally within the human heart.
This is cutting edge tech coupled with lotsa cash and old school chivalry. i'd suggest Iron Mansets a new standard for superhero flicks, in terms of comedic levity and CGI. As well as a few obligatory in-jokes for comic book nerds, Iron Man even manages a first of sorts—a genuinely amusing cameo by Marvel comics supremo Stan Lee, the inspiration behind ‘Ol’ Shellhead’ (wait for the sequel) as well as the key originator of Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, The Incredible Hulk, The Uncanny X-Men, etc.).
This is a funny, 'no-brainer' of a flick brought to life by Downey Jr. It holds the seeds of discussions about power, prestige, love and life, revenge and 'repulsor rays'.
Open House film reviewer Barry Gittins is editor of On Fire magazine, and a regular reviewer for the Salvos' Warcry magazine: www.salvationarmy.org.au/warcry
