The hype machine claims another victim, and that victim was me as soon as I dropped ten bucks on a ticket to what was a decent, but relatively unremarkable film. Iron Man is pretty average as far as comic book hero adaptations go. It didn’t blow me away, but it wasn’t horrible either. While watching the film, I bounced from various stages of amusement, boredom, entertainment, and disappointment. The pacing was uneven and I found myself glancing at my watch frequently. Ultimately, Iron Man was not quite worth the price of admission, but it will make a solid DVD rental.
Full disclosure: as a child, I didn’t follow the Iron Man comics. The only thing I knew was that Iron Man’s alter-ego, Tony Stark, was an alcoholic douchebag, which is probably not supposed to be an endearing quality for a super hero. But I find heroes with real human flaws more intriguing than the generic, “Dudley Do-Right” types so I knew I’d like Stark.
When I found out that Robert Downey Jr. was taking on the lead role as Iron Man/Tony Stark, I became even more intrigued. I can’t think of a more appropriate casting, and not just because of the parallels between Stark and Downey’s personalities. Both are brilliant at what they do and both are embattled by their inner-demons.
Stark is a genius and the son of one of the most wealthy and prolific weapons dealer in the world. Stark is so brilliant and wealthy that he seems bored with life. Things come so easy to him that he can deftly juggle brokering deals and constructing new inventions while binge-drinking and seducing numerous attractive women.
Stark appears to have no conscience or sense of accountability for the death-toll of his company’s weaponry. That all changes when his security group is all killed and Stark is taken hostage by a terrorist group. Ironically, Tony’s security team were all killed by his weapons, and Tony himself was mortally wounded by shrapnel from one of his own devices. This near-death experience awakens something within him and he finds his purpose, which is to make the world a safer place.
Oh, but he’s still a bit of a smarmy-savvy douchebag with a drinking problem. Now that’s my kind of hero!
Before seeing this movie, I had a very good feeling about Downey playing this roll, and Downey lived up to my expectations. The supporting cast was pretty decent (Except for Terrence Howard. More on that later.) But Robert Downey absolutely carried this movie. In fact, Iron Man without Robert Downey Jr. would have been like the Cleveland Cavaliers without LeBron James; it would have gone nowhere.
(I heard a nasty rumor that Nicholas Cage wanted the role of Starks. Yikes. It’s not that Cage sucks, but isn’t it bad enough that he got to do those terrible National Treasure films, which resemble Indiana Jones themed rip-offs? I know that Nick Cage frequently slurs his lines with a lazy drawl and he plays a good drunk, but can you really see him as a super hero? Do I have to bring up “Ghost Rider”? Aren’t you glad we were somehow spared that steaming pile of radioactive dogcrap? That would have sucked almost as bad as the first Hulk movie that Stan Lee is frantically trying make us forget by pushing the reset button on that franchise this coming summer.)
Gwyneth Paltrow was also exceptional in her role as Pepper Potts, Starks’ personal secretary. The chemistry and emotional tension between Tony and Pepper was a high-point in the film, second only to the appallingly-rare parts when Iron Man was uncasing his whoopass canister (more on this later).
Terrence Howard plays Lt. Colonel James 'Rhodey' Rhodes, Starks’ friend and the military liaison to Stark Industries. That reminds me, how does Terrance Howard keep getting work? He’s like the Black Kevin Costner. I can find no fathomable reason for Hollywood’s obsession with this guy’s wooden, emotionless performances. With the exception of the film “Crash”, Howard has been consistently unremarkable. His performance in this film is no different. Once again, he fails the cadaver test. I’m surprised that Downey didn’t pull a muscle lugging this albatross from scene to scene. Cuba Gooding Jr. or Will Smith would have been much better in this role. (Yes, I just gave props to Will Smith, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve lifted my personal ban on any movie that features him in a leading role.)
(What is the cadaver test? I’m glad you asked! Take any given actor and account for his unique skills, quirks, and natural talent. Accounting for his skills in a role in a given movie, replace him with an inanimate object like a bucket of sand or a corpse. Does the film lose anything with the placeholder stand-in? If this person just stood in the background and stared blankly, would it detract from the pace of the film, or would the viewer scarcely notice? That’s the cadaver test.)
Iron Man also suffered from one of the most excruciatingly slow plot developments in the history of comic book film adaptations. Look, I appreciate the time taken to show the origin of Iron Man, but I expect action films to maintain a certain level of action. The 35-year-old in me was sufficiently entertained, but the 12-year-old comic book reader in me wanted more explosions and wholesale ass-kicking.
Besides, if the writers and director opted to go through such painstaking methods to flush out the characters, why did they decide to leave the plot so obvious? I never read the Iron Man comics, but it took me less than ten minutes to discover who the real bad guy was. I was also disappointed by the paltry amount of screen time Iron Man got, which seemed only slightly longer than in the movie trailer or commercials. If the title of the movie is also the name of the main character, shouldn’t the main character get more than what amounted to just a series of cameos? Don’t get me wrong; the scarce amount of screen time Iron Man got was pretty bad-ass.
I was just left wanting more.
1) Story: C- (Slow development; obvious plot)
2) Acting: B- (Yay Downey! Yay Paltrow! Boo Howard!)
3) Visuals: A- (CGI-rendered Iron Man leaped from the comic pages.)
4) Originality/Innovation: B
5) Enjoyability Grade: C
6) Date Material: A (Plenty of down-time to make-out)
7) Contemporary Element (Will it be watchable two decades from now?): C
8) Overall Grade: C+
***
Blind Eye Turning: Poems, Prose, and other Scribbles, by Barry Dawson
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