How great a thing looks depends on the viewer’s perspective, and Jon Favreau’s Iron Man movie is no exception. If you’re expecting a serious, gritty take on a tormented anti-hero like Batman Begins you will be disappointed. If your benchmarks are the cartoonish and sloppy Fantastic Four movies you will want Iron Man given an Oscar. By default that analysis puts Iron Man in a bucket with the Spider-Man and X-Men movies, and (IMHO) it is absolutely on par with those journeyman efforts at giving our favorite comic book heroes silver-screen success.
Let’s face it, Iron Man is Marvel’s answer to Batman. They are both rich industrialists who don disguises and use technology (instead of super-powers) to fight crime. The similarities end there. In terms of methods and psychological motives they go off on two very different paths. Bruce Wayne is as mysterious as absinthe; haunted by his parents’ murder he directs his thirst for revenge into vigilante justice. As Batman, Wayne fights crime using stealth, adopting the image of a nocturnal creature for a “bogeyman” effect.
Maybe Iron Man’s creators, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, had no interest in going head-to-head with Bob Kane’s Batman, but they saw too much potential in the “crime-fighter-with-unlimited-funds” archetype to forgo their own version. Iron Man’s public face, Tony Stark, on the other hand, is a martini made with equal parts Howard Hughes and Hugh Hefner: A scientific genius slash jet-setting playboy. The pain from the injury that forced him to invent his armor leads him to seek relief in alcoholism and womanizing. His armor both keeps him alive and allows him to swagger into battle as Iron Man.
Technological advances in the ability to falsify technological advances have made a truly entertaining Iron Man movie an entertainment reality. Watching the red-and-gold-clad Tony Stark (played superbly by Robert Downey Jr.) fly and fight is a fully entertaining 2 hours because it isn’t 2 hours of just flying and fighting. When Stark is Iron Man, he is quick about it. He’s shown getting the hang of his technological marvel and it’s no accident that Chaplin-esque slapstick hilarity ensues. Downey is wisely given room to develop his character outside of the metal skin. When facing off with one of his 3 awesome co-stars (Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrence Howard) he shares the spotlight without ego despite his character’s mammoth one.
Iron Man’s script, though pretty damn good, leaves plenty for fan-boys to desire. Strong performances from the over-qualified talent are favored instead of a seamless plot that would completely satisfy the comic book nerds (like my younger self). Written by two screen-writing teams tackled the task on two different tracks: Favreau’s writers Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby worked directly with the actors to flesh out characters while Marvel’s writers Art Marcum & Matt Holloway took on the origin story and villain development. The script is a blend of their efforts, and aptly modernizes and condenses the hero’s story for a fantastic silver-screen debut.
I appreciate the efforts of the writers a great deal because I was a die-hard fan of Iron Man comic books as a teen. The overall story is intact, but some sacrifices had to be made. The pimpled teenager in me is fighting to be free and I, like Bruce Banner, am powerless to keep it bottled. On closer inspection there are serious gaps in the movie’s armor:
1) The movie’s miniature “Arc Reactor” (I guess it’s like cold fusion???) was housed in Stark’s chest. Not resting on it. Not set into it slightly. But situated in a way that precluded the presence of a heart, let alone a sternum. This clearly makes Stark a cyborg, a designation I am uncomfortable with!
2) As Stark built his first suit while a captive of the Ten Rings, his cell-mate, Yensin, could have easily been a mole for the bad guys….or even the chief bad guy himself in disguise! Yensin was perfectly forgiving of Stark’s arms dealing and had faith that Stark would see the error of his “merchant of death” ways…the kind of character that more clever writers (or writers who thought they were writing for a clever audience) would undoubtedly use as a double-crosser.
3) Stark is brilliant enough to create a tiny fusion reactor in ill-equipped an Afghan cave, but too naive to suspect his company’s wares wind up in the hands of terrorists.
4) Stark is brilliant enough to create a tiny fusion reactor in ill-equipped an Afghan cave, but too stupid to see that his right-hand woman is in love with him. (I guess that last bit is a common theme for movie geniuses.)
To continue point number three, the movie disappointingly makes a weak attempt to address our country’s complicity in war-profiteering. Whether this failing is the product of the movie’s conservative corporate parentage, a paradox in the source material’s logic (peace is achievable by deadly force), or an artifact of our post-9/11 world’s disdain for serious introspection is a moot point: IMHO all three play a part. It is arguably science fiction’s main job to point out the flaws in our present by re-contextualizing them into our future, or at least a parallel present that has better gadgets. Favreau and company are likely aware of the wealth of thrillers, dramas and documentaries waiting to be added to our Netflix queues that reflect the darker, truer aspects of how war works in the real world. Therefore they might think the world needs those movies and just as badly needs a movie that ignites an initial spark of inquiry in a fresh audience’s mind.
Taking my opening analogy literally, my viewing perspective of the movie was terrible. My group of 4 had to sit 2×2 in the front right of the theater, but we all loved it anyway. Iron Man is funny, smart and fun if not very deep. Buy your ticket, eat your popcorn and enjoy th hell out of it!
Today I found RetroThing.com and started looking at retro cameras. Lo and behold I discovered the TORTUGA 5, a panoramic pinhole camera that shoots five images onto 120mm film. The camera is a wood hand-crafted, ten-sided box with a film-winding mechanism, individual and simultaneous shutters, and brass detailing that includes an exposure calculator. The five negatives can be blended together in the printing to make totally unique panoramic images. The limited edition of 30 cameras is produced in Luxembourg and will run you €1,230 (US$1,925). Enjoy!
