Film

Iron Man (2008)

Director: Jon Favreau

Synopsis

The latest Marvel comic book to receive a big screen adaptation, this one stars Robert Downey Jr. as the titular tycoon-cum-superhero.

Movie review

From Time Out Chicago

Heavy comes free of charge with Iron Man, no matter what your frame of reference—Black Sabbath’s face-melting metal anthem or Marvel’s Cold War–spawned superhero. So it’s a sweet surprise that this long-awaited Hollywood version has lightness in mind.

The movie is blessed by motormouthed Downey as billionaire tech genius Tony Stark, an apolitical man with stripper poles on his private plane. Despite the talk, this “risky” casting pays off beautifully. Downey imparts crucial verve to Favreau’s static compositions; his glib Stark, launching smart bombs between Scotch sips and busting out of Afghan terrorist captivity with a half-amused shrug, is dangerously appealing in a P.J. O’Rourke way.

Of course, Iron Man becomes about Stark’s reawakening: Struck by conscience, he closes his arms factory—and for a giddy moment, you wonder if a studio movie might be taking on the whole of the military-industrial complex. But here, actually, is the sole problem with the film: Suddenly, it’s too conventional. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to correctly identify Jeff Bridges’s bald exec as the Halliburtonian antagonist-to-be. But Iron Man is one blockbuster that can’t end with a typical mano a mano slugfest, no matter how roboticized and Transformers-like. We want planes, tanks, enraged Congressional speeches. Such is the promise of the character that you feel like the franchise will get there. (Many hints are planted.) Then we’ll really see some heavy.