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| Marvel's Iron Man (2008) |
Consider, for example, the character of Tony Stark. A wisecracking, spontaneous rebel whose quirks and eccentricities blur so keenly with the public persona of actor Robert Downey Jr. that sometimes we're wondering if Downey is playing Stark or just being himself. So much of his dialogue and mannerisms in this movie feel improvised and effortless when contrasted against the major superheroes of films that came before. Batman is moody and cynical. Wolverine is haunted. Superman has all the gravitas of classic myths. But Iron Man has fun.
Clocking in at a lean two hours, Iron Man is a spectacle without being spectacular, extravagant without becoming an extravaganza. The first quarter of the film unfolds in a crummy cave in the Middle East, while much of the rest occurs inside Stark's workshop back home. Stark is front and center for the vast majority of the movie, a wise decision that allows Downey's mesmerizing performance to dominate the mood. The other characters never outshine him, but play to his strengths so that he steals every scene he's in—it just so happens that he's also the star of the picture.
Regarding the secondary characters, one thing I rarely hear mentioned is just how stunning of a cast Iron Man bolsters. This is probably due to the fact that Downey controls every scene masterfully, but that control is something that can only be given. The other actors inhabit their roles admirably and never try to outwit Stark, strengthening the performances all around. Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts is grounded and Stark's primary verbal sparring partner. Terrance Howard lends humor and irony to military liaison James Rhodes in what could have easily been a throwaway role. Shaun Toub plays Yinsen, the man who saves Stark's life in Afghanistan and helps him build the prototype Iron Man suit. Toub's soft-spoken performance here provides a perfect foil for Downey's mouthy Stark, and in many ways Yinsen becomes the catalyst for putting Stark on the road to redemption. But perhaps the star that shines most brightly is Jeff Bridges as the simmering and understated Obadiah Stane, a character it would have been nice to revisit in later films just to see Bridges playing this kind of villain again.
Thematically, the story has some interesting ideas at work. Stark Industries, the company Tony inherited from his father, Howard, is a weapons manufacturer. But after seeing firsthand the horrors of war in Afghanistan, Tony begins to rethink the distribution of weapons. Wisely, the film does not preach on these matters, though it certainly comes with a point of view. Tony must step out from under the shadow of his father and consider the degree to which the world has changed. It is no longer as simple as doing things "like dad did," now he must chart his own course. Howard is said to have worked on the atomic bomb, a weapon of mass destruction that was used with the intention of destroying lives to save lives. Now, Tony must pick up the pieces and chart a new, better course forward. Iron Man is not a weapon with no regard for collateral damage. He is a surgical instrument who can be used to save lives with precision.
The redemption of Tony Stark becomes the narrative through-line of Marvel's cinematic universe. The story begins here in Iron Man with Stark nearly dying, being kept alive only by an electromagnet implant that prevents shrapnel from entering his heart and killing him. Tony Stark should be dead. Everything that happens after this is one man living on borrowed time. What he chooses to do with that time makes all the difference. He has to lose his humanity to find it, and emerges from the caves of Afghanistan determined to make the world a better place. The death and resurrection motif is subtle here, but present nonetheless. How interesting that the film inverts this trope by having the death occur at the story's beginning rather than its end.
If I have one complaint about Iron Man, it's that I wish these themes would have been further explored. The ending—where superhero films frequently fumble the pass—devolves into the predictable iron man vs. iron man slam-bang-a-thon. It's loud and clanging and high on energy, but it almost seems a travesty to take two high-caliber actors like Robert Downey Jr. and Jeff Bridges, pit them against one another, and then obscure them behind a mess of CGI metal. The dialogue here is the usual mess of clichés as well, but I suppose this comes with the territory. The movie is really intelligently written, which is perhaps why the final battle lands with such a thud. I wish the film would have been just a bit braver here. After all, by 2008, Christopher Nolan had shown us that the genre could be completely reinvented into something truly audacious.
Iron Man is a fun, offbeat superhero flick, the kind of movie I doubt we will ever see again because the genre and these characters are now so embedded in the cultural psyche. Robert Downey Jr. stole the hearts and minds of millions with his quirky portrayal of Tony Stark, a selfish man learning to be selfless. If superheroes are meant to inspire us, to point us to something greater than ourselves, few point us toward humility like the Iron Man.
