Iron Man (2008)
The human element of a superhero film, particularly the human element of the initial entry in a prospective series (the “origin story”), usually represents the vegetables we have to rid our plate of before getting to the dessert. We watch our normally flat heroes go through the usual paces that sometimes wouldn’t look too out of place in Dawson’s Creek (or whatever the youth show de jour may be), all in the hope that the filmmaker, when he finally gets to why we’re all packed in the theatre to begin with, will wow us with a grand bit of what have you, or, if we’re really lucky, a sublime note of visual poetry.
Iron Man, oddly, and to a certain extent, blessedly, has the opposite problem; for about an hour, the picture, chronicling the normally tedious details of how our everyman becomes a superman, is alive and just a little eccentric; for awhile, the lead, Robert Downey, Jr., walks away with the picture in just the manner the trailer implied. Downey infects Iron Man’s wavelength, its editing even, and lends the picture an aura of drunk, self-loathing, screwball tea-time debauchery that feels practically revelatory for such a normally rigid, spontaneity-free genre. Downey’s Tony Stark, rich, handsome, confident, charismatic, intelligent, isn’t some softie with canned pathos; he’s a superman before being interfered with in a divine manner. The film’s initial wit lies in its reversal of our expectations of the usual mythos. Stark, to become a hero, must inherit a weakness, a humanity that brings him back to the realm of other humans, as opposed to a strength that shoots him up and above all others. Tony Stark couldn’t be a more fitting creation for our turn up the Ipod as the world goes to Hell times; Stark, to find his heart, must first nearly have it blown out of his chest.
It may sound like I’m pouring it on, but Iron Man isn’t too shy with its redemptive theme, the picture is a 1950s atomic paranoia fantasy (the villain even gets to proclaim that “no one’s gonna stand in my way”), crossed with an 1980s gee whiz kids film (Explorers perhaps) multiplied by a healthy dose of the current trend of smothering, impersonal action pictures. Iron Man, tellingly, details the development of the suit with more grace than the development of Stark’s conscience, which snaps on (like one of those lights we spoke of earlier in the week) abruptly at just the right moment, muting Stark’s personality in the process. The picture was directed by the gifted Jon Favreau, the actor who debuted as filmmaker with the small, human, very underrated Made, followed it with the overrated Elf, and then followed that with the also underrated Zathura, a gentle picture that had a memorably surreal storybook beauty about it, informed by a surprisingly convincing current of familial resentment and pain.
Favreau’s pictures are generous and lacking in ego, just the sort of thing the big summer movie business needs. Favreau, working with Downey, tries his best to shake things up in Iron Man, but, after a first hour that pumps us up for an anarchic, funny, reverent but not too reverent superhero picture, perhaps the MASH of the 200 million dollar product placement Happy Meal movies, he can’t help but succumb to the grinding repetition of the requirements of the genre. Favreau’s big robot beats aren’t lacking in awe (Favreau, even at his most audience conscious, is mercifully incapable of Michael Bay’s pornographic impersonality) but the scenes steal and distract from Favreau’s strengths; just as he and Downey convince you that Stark is worth giving a damn about, he goes and turns into a Transformer.
Iron Man has moments though, moments that take it beyond many of the pictures in the genre, and occasionally remind you why you truck out every year with your junk food and brave the lines and the heat for the newest “big thing.” The first action scene in the picture, when Iron Man is still scraps and must escape a cave in Afghanistan, is logical, personal, terrifying, and, for once in one of these pictures, has a bit of context. Iron Man, bent, leaking, screwed up, a walking discarded junk heap of the dead, personifies Stark’s bruised entitlement and startling naiveté. This metal creature is, at first, a haunting creation: he wastes the insurgents with a flame thrower and, for a few minutes, pumps the picture with melancholy, vengeance and relevance.
Two scenes involving Tony’s damaged heart also momentarily imbue the picture with something close to feeling. The first is a figurative love scene between Stark and his long suffering assistant Pepper Potts (a very beautiful, poignant Gwyneth Paltrow), the second is just the opposite: a moment of grand, closed door, pop betrayal that dissolves the minute we cut back to the big bad metal monsters. No robot could be scarier than the bizarre, unlikely sight of Jeff Bridges appearing as a poisonous surrogate father figure, but that doesn’t stop the filmmakers and special effects wizards from trying. Iron Man must, of course, have an evil antagonist, a twin sprung from the same well of dubious creation, and so he does, resulting in a fat, kind of goofy looking thing that could be said to be a joke on the Republican “more is better” philosophy but probably isn’t. In 1978, people were assured that they’d believe a man could fly, but would it hurt nowadays for us to be asked believe something besides, or at least in addition to, that? Iron Man needs less iron and more man.
★★★
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:56 am
It’s great to see Robert Downey as a superhero…he bites into the part like an alligator and swings it all around. This flick is good…just good enough to make you wish they had REALLY done something. Also, the FX are incredibly good.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:49 am
I agree with like everything you said, I really enjoyed the film, more than I thought I would.
Nice review
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Sharp, perceptive review. Like I wrote in my take on IM, I wish the film had more comic elan in the battle scenes, as the climax was crying for a lumbering awkward battle as befits the realism Favrea established in the far superior cave scenes (altho I didn’t get why Stark never bothered to hide his armor before the video camera). But Downey is all kinds of Marvel-ous.
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:51 am
Very good review, Chuck. I suppose I was at least a bit more approving of the direction the film took in its second half. It certainly could have used some more depth–and perhaps could have attained a certain popcorn “greatness” in doing so–but ultimately the actors make the largely thin arc work. The second I saw Jeff Bridges on the poster I realized, no matter what, he was the real villain. All of the roles are completely archetypal, but when you cast a film this well and get some very important elements right, it all works.
Christian, I agree that the cave scenes were excellent, and the rest of the film, both emotionally and artistically, when it came action scenes, just couldn’t match it.
Again, though, whoever cast Downey, Jr. made a completely inspired choice. I’m still trying to think of someone who could have been that good and suitable in the role, and I just can’t.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:23 am
The challenge in writing on a popcorn film like this is coming up with something relevant and perceptive to say when the whole thing is basically a shiny, iron-suit-blows-stuff-up-real-good vehicle, and what, really, is there to say about that? Nice job breaking down what works and what doesn’t, Chuck, although I do disagree that Elf was overrated.
In my review I broke down the political trappings that have historically surrounded comic book superheroes and which Iron Man has it’s fair dose of. It is simultaneously a condemnation and glorification of America’s current foreign policy, whether it knows it or not.
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Evan, that’s why the film will be huge around the world.
May 4th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Thanks for writing in guys.
Christian: I agree about the battle scenes, they work, but if you’re going to let them take the movie from Downey then you better have a REALLY good trick up your sleeve.
Evan: I ultimately didn’t get too far into the foreign policy stuff because, while its undeniably there (this subtext is part of why the Afghanistan sequences are so strong), I’m not sure how much legitimate interest the film has in mining it. I took it like I take the Nazis in an Indiana Jones film, the appropriate baddie for the time the picture is set in. I haven’t checked your review yet (been out for a few days) but I look forward to seeing what both you and Christian have to offer.
I wanted to like ELF, and I do like ELF to an extent, but Ferrell was a problem for me. I didn’t buy him, the “innocence” was self-conscious, a hipster’s game, and it kept from fully engaging in the picture. Though I should revisit it, there are moments that are really funny and charming.
May 4th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Bummer about ELF, Chuck. For me, it is one of those films that has become a permanent part of my cinematic holiday traditions, along with IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, A CHRISTMAS STORY, and CHRISTMAS VACATION. Christmas just isn’t Christmas without watching ELF at least once.
May 4th, 2008 at 11:34 am
I agree with Evan and Christian that Iron Man’s fairly open-ended, mostly harmless look at American foreign policy helps to ensure it will do exceedingly well both in American and abroad. During several scenes in which Downey, Jr. talks about America and its place in the world, and his discussion with Jeff Bridges, and other scenes, I couldn’t help but think that the Europeans and others will appreciate the film’s somewhat frank handling of said foreign policy matters.
It’s not deep or anything but it’s definitely there.
Note about the battle scenes: I agree that the big finale should have been a bit more dramatic and awkward, like Christian says, but one of the things about this film that I really, really enjoyed was how things that seemed kind of like time-fillers earlier became important later. The “gotcha” moment with the “ice problem” got a big reaction in the cinema. And deservedly so.
May 4th, 2008 at 11:38 am
I liked the idea of ELF more than the film. Any movie with Bob Newhart and Ed Asner as co-stars has me, but Ferrell’s shtick was too broad and without real emotion. I thought ELF lacked magic. But Favs clearly has great rapport with actors and that’s his strength right now.