Sunday, May 04, 2008
A+E, Movies, Reviews
The man in the iron mask
Robert Downey Jr. gives ‘Iron Man’ its spark
CREDIT: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures/Marvel Studios
Robert Downey Jr. stars in “Iron Man.”
“IRON MAN”
Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard
Directed by Jon Favreau
Rated PG-13
Wide release
By Kevin Forest Moreau
At their best, superhero fables resonate beyond the confines of the comics page when they serve as metaphors for certain aspects of the human experience. From Superman’s embodiment of the noble immigrant American to Spider-Man’s evocation of the perils of adolescence (decades before Buffy the Vampire Slayer cheekily updated the template) or the X-Men as surrogates for teens, gays or racial minorities, these primary-colored power fantasies work best when they synch up with our innermost anxieties and desires for self-actualization.
Which puts Tony Stark, the millionaire weapons manufacturer who strides into multiplexes this weekend in “Iron Man,” at a distinct disadvantage. Like Bruce Wayne, who prowls the streets of Gotham City as Batman, he’s a wealthy playboy who dresses up to fight crime, a dashing throwback to the breezy days of 1930s pulp novels and radio and movie serials. It’s one thing to identify with Tobey Maguire as social misfit Peter Parker; it’s another to empathize with a rich, hard-partying narcissist who seems to have just walked off the set of his own reality TV series.
Except that Stark is portrayed in “Iron Man,” Jon Favreau’s high-stakes adaptation of the Marvel Comics property, by Robert Downey Jr., whose sympathetic, rakish charm powers the film. Downey’s often at his best playing slightly aloof, quick-witted guys you want to become friends with, and here he ratchets up that magnetism full-force, playing Tony Stark as a cocky genius and thrill-seeking ladies’ man, a swaggering combination of MacGyver, Bill Gates and Mick Jagger.
That swagger is shaken, however, when he’s captured in Afghanistan by insurgents who threaten to kill him if he doesn’t build them a version of his latest high-tech missile. With the help of fellow captive Yinsen, who’s constructed a crude battery to keep the industrialist’s wounded heart beating, Stark instead fashions a walking weapons arsenal, which he uses to escape his captors and return to civilization.
Haunted by the sight of innocents killed by his own weapons, he decides to pull out of the arms business, to the chagrin of his military liaison Jim Rhodes (a typically engaging Terrence Howard) and executive/mentor Obadiah Stane (a bald, subtly and superbly menacing Jeff Bridges). Determined to put things right, he begins building an updated Iron Man suit to go after the thugs using his munitions for their own ends.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to spot the metaphor here: Like the Tin Woodsman from “The Wizard of Oz,” this metallic weaponsmith seeks his heart, both literal (the shiny doodad implanted in his chest) and figurative (his gal Friday Pepper Potts, played with a sexy mix of perky efficiency and understated affection by a surprisingly unobtrusive Gwyneth Paltrow).
More than the nifty CGI effects (which are predictably compelling), it’s Stark’s quietly blooming humanity, anchored by Downey’s effortless charisma, that provides the current that keeps “Iron Man” humming. Sure, our knowledge of the actor’s similar career path—riches to near-ruin to redemption—helps shade the performance. But if that’s all it took, Marvel Studios could just as easily cast Charlie Sheen and called it a day. It’s the energy, the confident yet hopeful spark in Downey’s eyes, the man inside the iron mask, that makes us root for his humbled genius on a quest for salvation. 3.5 STARS