Rightfully considered the first true blockbuster of 2008, Iron Man was released this past weekend and already raked in over $100 million in ticket sales. As per usual, when a Marvel superhero movie comes out, I had to go see it! It was even worth the 35 minute drive to Chesterfield to go see it on the Mega Screen… And overall, I thought it was pretty damned awesome…
The story centers around billionaire Tony Stark, who runs the weapons developer/manufacturer Stark Industries. While in Afghanistan giving a demo of his new missile to the U.S. military, he gets kidnapped by terrorists that want him to build the missile for them in a cave. During the course of the kidnapping, he gets some shrapnel caught in his body that will kill him once it reaches his heart (eh?) – he then develops a mini electromagnet to prevent this from occurring and save his life. In order to escape from the terrorists, he builds an iron suit from left-over missile parts, powered by the generator now in his chest. After escaping, he realizes the error of his ways and decides to do good for humanity, mostly buy building an even better generator and an even better suit to help combat evil around the globe.
The acting by Robert Downey, Jr. is excellent. As many other reviewers have said, and as I thought when his casting was first announced, Downey was born to play Tony Stark. It’s one of those things where there is no one else alive who could possibly play this role. Besides him, the acting amongst the other players was pretty good, but it all pretty much relied on his portrayal of Stark…and he succeeded admirably. The effects, of course, were also top-notch (as should be expected from the first true blockbuster of the year). It was good enough that you knew it was mostly computer generated, but it wasn’t all that easy to tell when Downey was in the suit, or whether the suit was actually CGI.
The thing that gets me about this movie, however, is the story… When I look back on movies like “Spider-man” and “X-men,” you can point to the “origin” aspects of the story, and then the “villain” part of the story. In the case of “Spider-man,” the first half of the movie is spent with Peter Parker figuring out his powers and what he’s going to do with them. The last half has him meeting up with the Green Goblin 3 or 4 times, culminating in a last battle leading to ultimate victory. So far as “X-Men” goes, there wasn’t as much “origin” to the story, but at least there were interactions with Magneto throughout the entire film, making that last scene where he’s defeated much more intense…
“Iron Man,” however, seems to follow the “Fantastic Four” formula of relying mostly on origin story, and then finally having a “boss battle” at the end of the movie…with no real interaction between the protagonist and ultimate antagonist until the very end (by “ultimate,” I mean the guy Iron Man eventually battles…even though he interacts with the villain throughout the movie). “Fantastic Four” was similar in that they coped with their powers for most of the movie, and finally fought Dr. Doom in the last scene…which made me dislike “Four” to an extent.
I think “Iron Man” does a better job of bridging the gap between “origin” and “villain” relatively well, but not as well as “Spider-man” did. So, to that end, I don’t think “Iron Man” is as good a movie, but I still think it was really good and I’ll grab the DVD…
…mostly because “Iron Man 2” has already been green-lit… 😛
I just wanted to throw out that I thought Iron Man was a better movie than Spider Man, because I think Tony Stark is more interesting as a character than Peter Parker was, partially because of the nature of the character itself, and partially because I liked Robert Downey, Jr. more than Tobey Maguire. I also thought Iron Man was a much more mature movie than Spider Man was in terms of subject matter. That said, they’re both excellent movies.
Really, what sold me on Iron Man was Samuel L. Jackson.
Yeah, I agree that Tony Stark is more interesting. I think they allowed (from the beginning in the comics) more darker themes to come out by having Stark as a primary character…but the purpose of Spider-Man/Peter Parker was to have a regular guy (i.e. not a rich man, not a group of scientists, not aliens, not mutants, etc.) that has these powers thrust upon him and then he has to decide what to do with them. I personally always found that story to be fascinating, especially as it allows the reader to really think about what they would do with such abilities.
Robert Downey, Jr., however, is simply a better actor than Tobey Maguire…I’ll concede that point…
Was Samuel L. on the fighter jets trying to rid them of snakes? Guess I missed him… 😛