Overall rating

4 / 5

Marvel over the first hit of the summer

PostedMay 2, 2008

from CA

Director Jon Favreau has made the first true Marvel-backed film adaptation of its beloved comic franchise soar above the rest thanks to the martini-dry wit and ingenuity of star Robert Downey Jr. in IRON MAN.
As the selfish, cynical captain of lethal industry, Tony Stark, Downey is a steel tempered shark in business and a predatory seducer of beautiful women who find his cool charm irresistible. That is, with the lone and crucial exception of his confidante aide Pepper Potts, in the guise of charming if underutilized Gwyneth Paltrow, who has wisely preserved her armor of platonic professionalism whenever she's caught in Tony's sights.
Stark is a second generation American entrepreneur in all the best and worst sense embodied in that brash and ballsy persona. He and partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) manufacture the deadliest and coolest weapons ever fired by and upon mankind — only once, as Stark proudly boasts.
So efficient and profitable are Stark Industries' products that its owner spins to his military buyers and the ravenous press that SI only manufactures peacekeepers, not death-bringers. Alas, the bitter global realities of political convenience at the expense of peace offer Stark a painful wakeup call to his own mortality and the terrible toll which his products exact in the wrong hands.
Favreau and Downey have partnered to create a plausible, petulant hero for today's world, happily devoid of arachnid angst and psychological shadows which allow IRON MAN to rise above expectations. Tenuously grounded in reality without being mired in it, offering many laughs without being its own punchline, IRON MAN starts this summer off with a sonic boom of high-flying superhero action.

Yes, I recommend this movie.

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