Movie Review: Iron Man
Jim Erickson was won over by this superhero movie.
05-08-08
The only noncommercial movie showing I know of before next Thursday is the Murdock Theatre's showing of a documentary by Leonardo DiCaprio, The 11th Hour, about which I know nothing but that it is like Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, about the global environmental crisis, differing apparently in its emphasis on possible solutions. That's tonight at 7:30 in the Murdock Theatre, 536 North Broadway.
And commercially, we have what many regard as the first of the big summer blockbusters, Iron Man, with Robert Downey Jr. In fact, with a budget of $180,000,000, it had better be one of the summer blockbusters or Marvel, which with this production becomes a full-fledged production company, will be in deep difficulty, especially with another stab at The Incredible Hulk as their second production, soon to follow.
Fortunately, for Marvel, Iron Man opened with an over-one-hundred-million weekend.
And is that fortunate for you? Well, I am reviewing it only because the alternative was another of the current craze of pregnancy movies, and it pretty much overcame my disinclination toward comic book movies, superhero movies, and special effects movies, and Spiderman II was the last movie to overcome all those. I can't say I really liked it, but I'd give it a three out of four and expect to get chewed out by people who give it a four.
Robert Downey Jr. certainly makes the hero more interesting than most of the others, except maybe Spiderman II, despite the fact that he's basically just a variant on the playboy who gets sucked into a cause. Americans seem suspicious of people who believe in causes unless they have personal motives for joining them, and here Downey's main motivation is captivity with some typically nasty Afghanistanis who even simulate drowning to make prisoners talk. Downey, being a worldwide munitions trader, obviously never knew such unpleasant things happened with his weapons, and when his captors, who like all Middle Eastern guerrillas in the movies cannot talk below a shout, insist that his next worldbeater weapon must belong to them, he decides to make his next masterpiece something that will serve real peace. The fact that it turns out to be just another weapon does not seem to occur to him. Once more, ever since the bow and arrow, peace is to be assured by a superweapon like, shall we say, the atomic bomb. But since Iron Man is primarily about the establishment of the superweapon, not its use for world peace, this particular picture does not have to deal with the problem of Downey's limited imagination.
And I wouldn't invest my money in a movie about a device that would guarantee world peace. Does anybody remember Collosus: The Forbin Project?
But given the somewhat inadequate premises, Iron Man does pretty well. Acting is consistently fine and such roles as Gwyneth Paltrow's loving secretary and Terence Howard's loyal sidekick are much more subtle and sensible than usual. Jeff Bridges almost overcomes the melodrama of his role, more than the script wants to let him. Special effects are of course very good even if Iron Man himself ends up too big to suggest much subtlety ahead, and even if he wound up reminding me of the trailers for Transformers.
Well, Iron Man wasn't made for me. But you'll know whether it was made for you, because it's very good for a very specific type, and not much different from the others.
Jim Erickson has been KMUW's film reviewer since 1974. Jim taught Narrative in Literature and Film at WSU from 1966 until his retirement in 1997. Jim's favorite film is Citizen Kane.
