Iron Man Lives Again

Iron Man contains everything that not just superhero movies, but summer blockbusters in general aspire for. It's a fun blend of adventure, humor, emotion, romance, and (it wouldn't be a summer movie without) explosions. Before being made, the movie spent more than fifteen years in development hell bouncing back and forth between different studios, writers, and directors. The bright side of this is that they have seemingly found just the right creative team to tell the Iron Man story. The direction, cast, and dialogue are all solid contributors to the success of this film. The cast at first seems unconventional, but after seeing them in action, each of the main players fits perfectly in their roles. Everyone right down to the helper robots in Tony Stark's workshop comes off as being largely likeable (or, in Jeff Bridges's case, surprisingly menacing for a man most famous for playing someone known as "The Dude"). Robert Downey Jr. in particular seemed like an ironic bit of casting, given Downey's past substance abuse problems and Iron Man's history in the comics of being an alcoholic. However, despite any sort of doubts about his past, age, or abilities as an actor, Downey manages to make Iron Man alter-ego Tony Stark seem at times rakish, self-deprecating, hilarious, vulnerable, and bad-ass. In Director Jon Favreau's own words, Downey makes Stark a "likeable asshole". Iron Man has always seemed like Marvel's answer to DC's Batman, but here Tony Stark is portrayed as a completely unique character who is just as complex, but half as emo.

There are a couple updates to the origin story that help the film resonate with modern audiences. They've swapped the Vietnamese communists from the comic book origins for Afghan terrorists, which works surprisingly well. Also instead of a British butler named Jarvis, Jarvis in the film has been turned into a home security system/onboard computer for the Iron Man suit with a British accent (robots seem to always have British accents).

The plot seems to be meticulously planned out to hint towards the movies looming in the future. The film hints towards Tony Stark’s military liason/BFF James Rhodes becoming War Machine and it can't be a coincidence that Tony Stark seems to be holding a glass of alcohol in most of the scenes that he appears in. The cast and crew have already signed on for two more sequels (as is customary these days). Robert Downey Jr. also has a cameo in the upcoming Incredible Hulk film, which hints toward the eventual Avengers movie and if you stick around after the credits of Iron Man you'll see another big nudge toward an Avengers feature. Iron Man is likely to be Marvel's next big franchise, stepping into the void left in Spiderman 3's disastrous wake. The film took in approximately $32.5 million on its opening day which is the 14th biggest opening day of all time.

Iron Man is just a good, clean fun movie. While Tony Stark is a bit of a womanizer, his relationship with his assistant Pepper (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) comes off rather sweet and innocent. The action sequences are cool enough to satisfy the manly men while still containing enough emotional depth to keep it from being a superficial story. This film is the best Marvel superhero film since 2004’s Spiderman 2 (sidenote: in terms of DC comics films, they have recently focused more on quality than quantity and their 2006 Superman Returns was the last great superhero movie). We’ll have to wait until June to see if the new Incredible Hulk film continues this trend. If you’re looking for fun way to beat that good old Irvine boredom, Iron Man might just be the film for you. I’d say it’s worth the ridiculous price to see it now, and worth seeing again once it makes it to the dollar theatre.