watching movies one cup at a time

In theaters now, Iron Man is the long-awaited film based on the Marvel comic book superhero. Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark, a rich, boyish genius whose company builds sophisticated weapons for the military. But after he’s kidnapped by terrorists using his own company’s weapons, he decides he can no longer be a part of building tools of destruction. While held captive he builds his first version of the Iron Man suit which he uses to escape. Once home he declares that his company will no longer be making weapons, which doesn’t sit well with his partner Obidiah Stane (Jeff Bridges). Tony starts to perfect his Iron Man suit in order to go out and stop the terrorists who have been using his company’s weapons. And of course eventually he and Stane have to come to a final showdown.

Robert Downey Jr. may have seemed like an odd choice for Tony Stark at first, but we could even tell in the movie trailers for this film that he was going to give it all he had and make this character work. And he sure does deliver. This is a great actor that had gone through some troubled times, not unlike the character of Tony Stark. One of the challenges of this role was to show the transformation of Tony Stark from bored playboy to a hero and from a jerk to someone likable. Downey did it brilliantly and really showed what he could do here as he effortlessly rattled off witty one-liners, channeled Errol Flynn and Howard Hughes, and created a character so completely that you cannot imagine anyone else in that role once you’ve seen the film. He made the movie fun. Unlike the tortured Batman and Superman, this movie’s Iron Man is having a really good time.

The rest of the cast is also very effective. No one wasted their talents here and they brought some real depth to their roles. Gwenyth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, and Terrence Howard all shined, making what could have been one-dimensional characters into something real and believable.

One rule these movies seem to follow is that the first film must be the origin story. So consequently there was not a lot of time spent with Downey in the actual Iron Man suit. And although the end confrontation was great, it was pretty much the only time Iron Man got to really do something. However they have already announced a sequel coming in 2010, and now that the origin story is out of the way I’m sure we’ll get right to the action next time.

With so many comic book films being made it’s easy to get fatigued and bored with them. And for every good one like Batman Begins there seems to be a really bad one like Fantastic Four: ROTSS out there to give these movies a bad name. So it is refreshing to get a well-made superhero movie that has a lead character that’s intelligent, funny, self-deprecating, and not so serious all the time. For a summer superhero action movie, it really delivers.