IRON MAN
Directed by Jon Favreau; written by Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway based on the character created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Don Heck and Jack Kirby; director of photography, Matthew Libatique; edited by Dan Lebental; music by Ramin Djawadi
With: Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Shaun Toub, and Gwyneth Paltrow. Rated PG-13. Running time: 2 hours 6 minutes

Reviewed by Joel Johnson

Robert Downey Jr. is one of America’s best and most charismatic actors, and his role as Tony Stark as well as the title character in Jon Favreau’s Iron Man allows him to pour out the character qualities that he is best known for and can probably deliver in his sleep. Tony Stark is a genius in developing weapons technology and a self-involved egotist who never met a whiskey that he didn’t like and has never met a woman with whom he wanted to have a relationship after the pursuit of seduction and the ensuing sexual conquest. Stark is a man-child who likes to play with things that shoot projectiles and/or blow up someone. But Downey’s natural smoothness and charm effectively makes this character one that the audience cannot dismiss with disdain even though Stark is amoral, boorish, and destructive. It is during one of Tony Starks’s junkets to Afghanistan to demonstrate one of his new weapons systems that his life undergoes a transformation, making him Iron Man as well as providing him with an epiphany about the nature of the business enterprise Stark Industries (begun by his late father) for which he serves as the whiz-kid public face, even if he is not actually in charge.

Downey is a skilled physical actor, allowing him to keep audience interest even in scenes that he plays alone. He is, of course, surrounded by quality supporting actors in Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard, Shaun Toub, and Jeff Bridges. Bridges has terrific fun as the heavy who goes whole hog in his efforts to profit from the militarization of the “iron man” technology. The militarization of the special abilities of superheroes is a recurring theme in the lore of the comic book superheroes (see review of The Incredible Hulk). Paltrow’s Pepper Potts is, of course, the faithful “girl Friday” for Downey’s Tony Stark. They build and promise to sustain a romantic tension that is based on their obvious attraction as well as the repulsion (hers anyway) for becoming just another plaything for ten minutes of amusement. Jon Favreau, the comic actor-turned-director, keeps the action moving in an efficient yet unflashy way that allows his actors to do their work of developing their characters to tell the story. With a fresh slate (this is the introductory Iron Man film) and fine actors led by Downey, this is likely to rank as many filmgoers favorite blockbuster of the summer season.