January 9, 2009: Iron Man
I haven’t previously mentioned in my reviews that I’m not such a big fan of comic book movies. This is what I claim, although picking a bit deeper, that claim does fall apart somewhat. I didn’t grow up reading comic books so that means both that I’m not well attuned to the tone of that type of reading, and also that I’m not familiar with the more obscure characters and storylines. But I’ve always liked (most of) the Superman movies and Spider-Man stuff, and sometimes even Batman, although I never quite understood why Batman was supposed to be so special, since all he did was run around with a bunch of gadgets on his belt and he had no real superpowers. And I enjoyed Unbreakable, which was a cerebral examination of how comic book characters might be in the real world.
What I conclude is that I haven’t understood the deeper story behind most comic book characters, as they deal with dark events from their youth and that drives the way they choose to engage with the world, usually helping people but often walking a fine line between helping and hurting, both in their actions themselves as well as their perception by the public. The superpowers are incidental to the core human (we’ll call them human for the sake of the argument – yes, I know they aren’t all actually earth-originating homo sapiens) stories. I like the superpowers (hence my affinity for Superman but lower enthusiasm for Batman), and the whole concept of the epic battle between good and evil makes for some good action movies.
Iron Man comes to us as just another one of those movies based on a comic book I had never heard of, about a guy with no special powers. The way such a movie is constructed, and the story arc it creates, are important in determining whether it’s a wild global success or merely a fanboy’s wet dream. Iron Man achieves both, in a way that seems to have been the exclusive domain of the Spider-Man movies in recent years.
The story is about an outgoing and personable man named Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey, Jr.) with great business and technical skills, who has built a corporate empire supplying advanced weapons technology to the US government…and possibly other countries as well. As I recall, he’s also subconsciously driven by wanting to impress his dead father, along the lines of what was found in pretty much every Tom Cruise movie between about 1986 and 1996. After being captured in the middle east en route to a sales call, he builds a crude “Iron Man” suit in order to escape, and realizes that this would be a perfect new product to shop to the US military. Corporate power struggles emerge in his own company, he works on his new prototype suit, and the world needs saving. Oh, and there’s also a romantic interest. It’s more complicated than that, but mostly in a good way.
This was better than I expected, and I would certainly recommend the film. As an engineer and one who gets stuck on the feasibility of movie technology, I felt that I was forced to suspend my disbelief several times, but when I thought about it, I realized that it all really came down to one main suspension, and if I could come to terms with that, everything else flows smoothly. That seems fair, for a movie which doesn’t claim any correspondence to reality.
Iron Man, along with Tropic Thunder, have recently brought Robert Downey, Jr’s career back from the brink. It’s hard to correlate Downey in 2008 with the Downey of 20+ years ago acting in silly teen movies like Weird Science, and the Downey of 10 years ago struggling with drugs and apparently way over the edge. I’ve always liked the energy he brings to the screen, with a perfect mix of smarminess and genuine charm, and it was disappointing not to see the critical buzz around Chaplin (1992) propel him further at that time. Zodiac from a couple of years ago, and Good Night, and Good Luck. from a couple of years before that, have been reminders that he’s got serious potential and can lead (or steal) a movie anytime he wants to.
The CG effects in Iron Man are pretty good. Some of the “guy flying in the suit” stuff is a bit too much for me, but I acknowledge that it’s really the only way to do this story justice, and I can accept it. It was nominated for the Visual Effects Oscar but did not win.
The only serious quibble I have with this movie is that while I like the idea of super-geniuses, it’s not really a believable set of skills. Here’s a guy who has detailed technical knowledge of several engineering disciplines, and tinkers in his home lab, but also somehow manages to hold down one of the top jobs at a large corporation, even though he relies on a personal assistant (a mostly wasted Gwyneth Paltrow) to keep track of such minor details as his Social Security number. Mind you, I can deal with all of this if we take him to be a regular-guy superhero. The problem is time. It takes time to run a company or be a salesman or to build things. I’ve built stuff. I’ve done administrative tasks. Business plans take days to draft and weeks to finalize. It takes me an hour or two just to cut a bunch of pieces of wood and assemble something. Tony Stark runs around as the the figurehead of his company, and at home he designs and builds an intricate and beautifully designed flying suit with myriad weapons and extras built in, and manages this in some short number of weeks. I don’t care if you have all the best tools money can buy, it simply can’t be done.
I attempted to see this movie in the theatre on or around opening weekend and was forced to leave after less than 10 minutes because someone in the row behind us was reacting verbally to EVERYTHING that happened on screen, and it was clear that this was not going to stop. Home video saves the day once again. There’s a reason I prefer the Monday night late shows at the theatre rather than Saturday afternoons.
Iron Man is worth seeing, even if you’re on the fence superhero-wise. This is accessible in the way the Superman and Spider-Man movies are.
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