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Benjamin Wood
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Score: 4.5/5

Superhero movies have, for the last five or ten years, become a consistent blockbuster summer release. There tend to be at least three or four every year, and for the most part, their quality has been suspect, relying heavily on CGI action sequences while sacrificing engaging stories. The one that seems to defy this is Batman Begins, which succeeded most likely because of Christian Bale's tremendous performance as Bruce Wayne and the fact that director Christopher Nolan played to his strength, which is making dark, brooding cinematic experiences. Iron Man, at first glance, seems to be pandering in the normal Superhero direction, going for action and the occasional slapstick, while constructing only the skeleton of a story around its special effects. When one looks deeper, however, it becomes obvious that Iron Man is much more than a by-the-numbers movie, and definitely sets the bar high for the rest of the summer blockbusters.

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is an engineering genius, graduating from college while most kids were still in high school, and being hailed as the person who "wants to save America." He inherited his father's weapons company, and has turned it into a multi-billion dollar company. He is also a hopeless womanizer and a borderline alcoholic, and ditches award ceremonies to drink and gamble at a casino. Things change, however, when he is taken hostage after a weapons demonstration in Afghanistan, and he is forced to use his amazing intelligence to escape.

Even under the constant watch of his captors, Stark builds a weapon-laden suit of armor, which he locks himself into, and proceedes to burn down the rebel base where he was kept at. Returning home, Stark has a newfound sense of duty, and vows to stop making weapons and instead divert his company's resources to helping people, not killing them. This decision is not received well by many people, most notably Stark's business partner Obadiah Stane (a wonderfully creepy Jeff Bridges) and his military commander friend Jim "Rhodey" Rhodes (Terrence Howard). Stark, however, doesn't care, and proceeds to build a more sophisticated robot suit than the rudimentary one he built while held hostage, and devotes the use of this suit to helping those in need (his first "mission" is to save an Afghani village that is being assaulted by insurgents).

Downey plays Stark with the exact right mix of cynicism, sarcasm, and new-found activism that the character demands, and is not for a minute unbelievable in this role. In fact, if Iron Man does spawn sequels (which the movie hints at constantly), it could easily serve to resurrect Downey's career and serve to silence those that thought his best days were before he nearly ruined himself with drugs and alcohol. In fact, Downey's career mirrors Stark's in many ways, and for that reason lends even more credibility to the role.

Bridges plays Stane effectively, although his character is fairly one-sided, and Howard does a serviceable job as Rhodes. More impressive is Gwyneth Paltrow, who plays Stark's assistant Pepper Potts. She is devoted to her boss, and goes out of her way to help him, although it's clear that she harbors a crush on the eccentric billionaire and is somewhat hurt by his constant womanizing. Paltrow, an actress I usually find myself underwhelmed with, plays the role extremely well, and gives the second best performance in the movie.

Director Jon Favreau manages to capture the essences of all of these characters while also maintaining the intense action sequences and momentary slapstick diversions. No area of the film seems shortchanged, although sometimes the action sequences linger a little longer than was probably necessary. Really, the only major faults I can find with the film is that it felt long (it probably could've been just as effective if it had been shortened by about 15 minutes), and it doesn't always attempt to break completely free of the traditional superhero movie box, although it definitely plays at the very limits allowed by the genre.

Rarely are superheroes allowed to have fully fleshed out characters, and even more rarely are they allowed to really grow as characters outside of those moments where the plot demands that they do (generally when a close friend is killed or their love interest is taken hostage), and Iron Man manages to have both in spades. Stark's character constantly transforms throughout the movie, growing and changing in response to the events at hand in a way that would be expected of (gasp!) normal people. It, along with Batman Begins, shows how good a superhero movie can be when the hero is not an alien (Superman) or a mutant (Spider-man, the X-Men, the Hulk, etc), but is rather a person who just happens to possess great natural talents. It allows for them to be great heroes while keeping their humanity intact, and makes for a much more enjoyable cinematic experience.

Oh, and stay after the credits for one of the best bonus scenes ever tacked on to the end of a film. Honestly, it's not to be missed, and left me giddily anticipating a possible sequel to Iron Man.

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