Jon Favreau’s Iron Man finds just the right tone for a super­hero movie, pitched some­where in the sweet spot between Spider-Man’s emo­tional melo­drama and Batman’s grim vengeance. This Dork Reporter, a for­mer lover of comic books (that stopped keep­ing up with them partly out of fru­gal­ity, and partly lack of brain band­width), sees two high water marks in the recent surge of superhero-themed Hol­ly­wood fea­ture films:

Sam Raimi’s first two Spider-Man movies cap­tured the key themes that made Spider-Man such a pop­u­lar and last­ing char­ac­ter in the first place (seri­ously, find me a kid in the English-speaking world who does not know all about Spider-Man). The comic book on its sim­plest level was a para­ble of the some­times unwel­come changes that come with ado­les­cence. Also key to Peter Parker’s teen psy­che was his con­stant nego­ti­a­tion between his own hap­pi­ness and respon­si­bil­i­ties towards friends, fam­ily, and soci­ety. Please, let’s not dis­cuss the painfully awful Spider-Man 3; the bit­ter wounds of dis­ap­point­ment are still raw, ooz­ing, and infected.

The other comic book super­hero fran­chise to trans­late well to the screen in recent years is, of course, Bat­man. Helmed by such mature, seri­ous artists as direc­tor Christo­pher Nolan and actor Chris­t­ian Bale, Bat­man Begins per­haps could not help but to turn out as well as it did. The comic book char­ac­ter was orig­i­nally con­ceived as a lone vig­i­lante avenger in the 1930s, descended into camp self-parody in the 60s, then reverted back to grim form in the 70s. The char­ac­ter fol­lowed a par­al­lel arc in his movie incar­na­tions: Tim Burton’s Bat­man films are dark and weirdly won­der­ful, Joel Schumacher’s are tacky and cheesy, and now Christo­pher Nolan has restored the fran­chise back to its gothic roots. Note that Heath Ledger as the Joker in the upcom­ing sequel Bat­man The Dark Knight doesn’t actu­ally smile!

Talk to the… nah, that’s too easy

Iron Man was heav­ily mar­keted as Robert Downey Jr.‘s redemp­tion after decades of louche behav­ior led to him becom­ing unhirable (or more accu­rately, unin­sur­able). Was Downey per­fectly cast, or was the role tai­lored to suit him? If any­thing, from what lit­tle I know of the comics, the film­mak­ers may have actu­ally toned Iron Man’s alter-ego Tony Stark down. Phys­i­cal dis­abil­ity is a long-established theme in Mar­vel Comics’ sta­ble of char­ac­ters, take for exam­ple the blind Dare­devil. Stark’s dis­tin­guish­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic was his bum ticker, but he was also famously an alco­holic prick. Do you think, per­haps, there’s a metaphor to be found in the char­ac­ter of a soul­less arms dealer who loses his lit­eral heart but finds his con­science? Hmmm…

Djay da Pimp, Viola De Lesseps, Char­lie Chap­lin, and The Dude star in Iron Man

Jeff Bridges totally rocks a bald pâté, and bless­edly under­plays his role as chief bad­die Oba­diah Stane. He’s the mel­low voice of rea­son, sound­ing for all the world like The Dude with an M.B.A. That is, until he raises his voice for the first time, and the good times are over, man. Unfor­tu­nately, Gwyneth Pal­trow (as the allit­er­a­tive Pep­per Potts) and Ter­rence Howard (Jim Rhodes) don’t fare as well. Pal­trow, with lit­tle expe­ri­ence in the sci-fi effects block­buster genre, is hys­ter­i­cally uncon­vinc­ing at run­ning away from fire­balls in high heels (you can imag­ine her pout­ing “But Har­vey said I don’t have to run from fire­balls!”). Howard is just plain bor­ing, with lit­tle to say or do.

Iron Man is quite enjoy­able, pro­vided you try to ignore the rather con­ser­v­a­tive gung-ho atti­tude toward the war on ter­ror. It only dis­ap­points at the very end, when it devolves into a CGI rock ‘em sock ‘em robot bat­tle. It was inevitable accord­ing to the genre, and the nat­ural tra­jec­tory of the plot, but still…

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Offi­cial movie site: www.ironmanmovie.com

Buy any of these fine prod­ucts from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to The Dork Report:

 

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