Iron Man

The world needs a hero right now. Just take a look around, everyone's struggling with something. These days more than ever, America needs someone to look up to. Robert Downey Jr. doesn't seem like the best candidate for a hero. That being said, in Iron Man, he's the best action movie hero in recent memory. He completely becomes his character, Tony Stark, playing him with a tangible realism. Initially, Stark also isn't someone to look up to. He's a womanizing, alcoholic gun manufacturer that's so apathetic he doesn't even realize a whole terrorist army is touting his weapons. Nevertheless, the audience loves Tony, because he's sharp, funny, brilliant and downright cool. Early on in the film, he insults Christine Everhart (Leslie Bibb), a young and sexy reporter from Vanity Fair, only to end up seducing her. Afterwards, his excuse for being late to his private flight is classic. "I was doing a piece for Vanity Fair," he jests with a smile. The comic lines role off Downey's tongue, and he emanates the kind of movie cool that makes flashy suits and big sunglasses look good and iron armor look even better.

The private plane takes Stark and his Air Force buddy Jim Rhodes, an ever-impressive Terrence Howard, to Afghanistan, where Stark will demonstrate his company's latest missile technology. Things go horribly awry, how else could a great superhero movie begin, honestly? Stark ends up captured in a terrorist cave. So he builds a reactor to replace his damaged heart, and his next invention is a scrappy iron suit to escape in. After a daring escape sequence, he makes it home, but he also realizes the ere of his ways. Of course, once he's back, he crafts that amazing Iron Man armor of classic comic book lore, and he seeks revenge on all of the bad guys. That's the fun part. The special effects are bombastic and explosive. In fact, the action sequences are so crisp they look real. The fast pace and quick editing also strengthen the film's punch.

However, Iron Man is more than just fun. The film builds with a solid narrative. Stark goes from everything to nothing, and then back again. Downey plays each moment with a fierce vitality. He becomes Stark in a way that few character actors could. Take the scenes where he's alone building his new suit. He goes through every bit of disappointment and struggle by himself, but keeps the sense of humor, belittling the robots helping him. As the suit evolves, the character evolves, and the performance is so nuanced that it works on numerous levels. The fact that Downey can fire a zinger doesn't hurt either. With a sacarstic smile he often shoots down his straight-laced buddy Rhodes. He tells him upon getting into a Hummer, "This is the fun-V, the Humdrum V is back there." That sharp smirk nails it every time. Once Stark's heart is replaced, Downey plays the drama equally as well.

Of course, there's a girl. In this case, it's Stark's attractive, young personal assistant Pepper Potts, played by a fantastic Gwyneth Paltrow. Her performance is also quite real. The sexual tension between Pepper and Tony, oozes that office taboo that most of America has the chance to experience at least once, and it adds another dimension to the film. Also, Paltrow nails it on the action sequences as well, playing resourceful. Also, we've got the sinister Obadiah Stane, played by Jeff Bridges. He adds evil to this concoction, and he makes it delightfully sour.

Iron Man raises the bar for superhero movies. In fact, it's the perfect way to kick off the summer movie season the year. It's one of those rare big budget, action flicks where everything simply works. Director Jon Favreau has forged a stronger-than-steel adaptation of one of Marvel's classic comic book heroes. The reasons why Iron Man is so good stem from the leading man, Mr. Robert Downey Jr. When he donned a black bowler hat and mustache in the oscar nominated-Chaplin, few moviegoers would've ever pictured him becoming a wrought-iron superhero, moreover, playing it as well as he does. This is exactly the hero that we needed.

—Rick Florino
05.02.08

The curtain rises on Marvel Comics' first in-house production to rousing results as their metal man of iron introduces himself to enthralled moviegoers everywhere. Just as billionaire playboy Tony Stark utilizes his technological know-how to fight evildoers, so does director Jon Favreau use his bag of cinematic tricks to lay the groundwork for yet another top-caliber franchise starring one of the biggest icons of the printed page. Delivering laughs as well as leaps of wonder, this comic-book fantasy gets it right across the board, with its buoyant tone never diluting the grounded dramatics of the story. For the flick to work, though, one needs an exceptional cast -- something this production has in spades. Sure, it's an origin story, but to the cast's credit, none of it ever seems tedious. Even if they basically follow the same superhero mold of yesteryear, the tight ensemble of Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard, and Jeff Bridges sells the action romp every step of the way -- so much so that one can't help but want more. It's quite evident that the best is yet to come, not only with this series, but also with big-screen Marvel outings as a whole. With clever shout-outs to the imprint's expansive universe (including a post-credit cameo that'll send the geek Richter scale off the charts), Iron Man sets the stage for as yet unrealized crossover possibilities, a dream barely hinted at in previous book-to-screen adaptations. If future productions can deliver on the story while juggling both the technology and the talent as well as this one did, then it is possible that this is the true start of comicdom's cinematic rebirth, built by the best that Hollywood has to offer. All in all, a fine introduction to a hero that finally dares to tackle weight-of-the-world issues. It's about time.
~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide