FILM REVIEW
– IRON MAN (2008).
After a rake of poor quality Marvel comic book hero films, it is good to see a great film adaptation again. This one works better for having stark mostly challenged by human situations, and a realistic post 9/11 War Against Terror setting. Only in the finale does he face another super-being, or another iron man in a power suit.
Robert Downey Jar, initially depicted as an amoral arms dealer, womanizer, drinker, gambler, etc, superbly plays Tony Stark. After his capture by terrorists in Afghanistan, by terrorists who use his own weapons systems, he has a change of heart in more ways than one. His capture comes after he survives an attack on a convoy transporting him from a visit to a US Military base where he has been demonstrating his latest invention, the Jericho missile.
Surprised at their own good fortune in capturing the badly wounded Stark, the terrorists patch him up and leave him with a fellow prisoner, a doctor and languages expert, who saves Stark’s life by making a chest magnet able to keep the various shrapnel fragments in his chest away from the heart and various other organs.
The terrorists naively leave Stark with a heap of scientific equipment with which to build them their own missile system, but instead, he upgrades the chest magnet and builds the proto-iron man suit, a clanking armour suit that has missile and flame thrower potential. He takes out the terrorists and escapes, though his friend; the doctor is killed, making stark promise to stop wasting his life.
The proto-suit is trashed and Stark abandons it in the desert where the terrorists find it and reassemble it later.
Stark is barely home when, after insisting on a burger (blatant product placement advertising for a leading US fast food chain) he renounces the arms trade much to the shock and horror of his partner, Jeff Bridges.
Stark also begins a romance of sorts with his long serving secretary, with the silly name of Pepper Potts, played delightfully by Gwyneth Paltrow), who has patiently seen him take in a whole succession of lovers over the years. She is uneasy in helping him make yet another upgrade to his chest magnet, which also serves as a giant pace-maker, as if his heart was in the dead centre of his chest rather than to the left hand side. The glow of this heart is visible even through his jumpers. Much of the plot now concerns his efforts to get back his latest heart upgrade from a villain who steals it, while using an older, weaker heart unit to power his own iron man suit. There is more than a passing nod here to the Tin Man’s need for a heart in The Wizard Of Oz.
News reports show that the terrorists who had captured him now have many of his weapons systems. His firm is selling the weapons to the enemy. Stark builds a new Iron Man suit, and makes several tests on it in a very funny sequence in which his concerned robot house keeps turning fore extinguishers on him whenever it fails to work properly. The flying sequences are stunning, possibly the best since the first Superman film.
Stark now flies in the suit to Afghanistan and wipes out the terrorists, though survivors sell the original power suit back to Jeff Bridges who begins to make his own suit based on the designs for it, with the technology he has access to at Stark Industries. The final battle of the Iron Giants is reminiscent of the Robocop V Ed-209 showdown with similar results.
It’s a terrific romping two hours of escapism, with lots of nods to the comics and hints of a very powerful sequel. The inevitable Stan Lee cameo is one of the best, with Stark mistaking him for Playboy tycoon Hugh Heffner.
Another great touch is the passing appearances of the agents from SHEILD and their attack on Jeff Bridges’s offices, before he attacks back in the power suit upgrade he has made is very well handled. The real surprise however is the post-closing credits appearance of the one eyed leader of SHEILD known to many comic book fans as Nick Fury and his invitation to stark to join a project concerned with The Avengers. The prospect of the Avengers Team appearing in a film is very exciting. An uncredited Samuel L. Jackson here playsFfury, - a big improvement on the Fury film they once made with David Hazelhoff in the role.
Arthur Chappell
LINK TO THIS PAGE http://arthurchappell.me.uk/film.review-iron.man.htm
LINKS TO OTHER PEOPLES PAGES E-mail arthur@chappell7300.freeserve.co.uk
UPDATES MYSPACE - http://www.myspace.com/arthurchappell
FACEBOOK - http://profile.to/arthurchappell/
FACEBOOK BLOG http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blogpage.php?blogid=85623
MY BOOKS - http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=952521