Iron Man

There is always a second narrative to comic book movies; that being the drama played out by geeks on message boards. Whenever a new movie is announced you will immediately see groups going nuts, some praising heaven and others starting up petitions to not have their childhood memories squashed. Both sides of the argument (and trust me, there is rarely a middle ground) are ultimately irrelevant, given that the license holder has the final say, not somebody with a long box of comics and years of memories. That’s why I was surprised to see an overwhelmingly positive response to iron man and its casting. Just about every last nerd out there had faith in this movie and having seen it I doubt they where disappointed. Perhaps we can thank the direct involvement of Marvel Comics and the mellow cool of Robert Downey playing Tony Stark.

For people like me who know the source material it seems like a natural fit. Tony Stark is a hard partying, womanizing billionaire CEO of a weapons company in both the movie and the books. If anything the movie smartly leaves out the characters alcoholism and questionable political choices, although I hear those are simply being set aside for future installments of the franchise. After an explosion he is captured in enemy territory and is forced to build a powerful weapon to fight the Americans. Instead he builds himself an electromagnetic pace maker to keep the shrapnel lodged in his chest from killing him and a powerful robotic suit of armor to enable his escape from enemy hands. The only difference with the source material is that in the update they have chosen to go with the war in Afghanistan. At first it looks like a superficial choice, a simple update to more modern conflicts that don’t make date the hero to be as old as John McCain. Still for anybody who has watched Charlie Wilson’s war or read A Thousand Splendid Suns we all know the results of arming Afghani rebels and then walking away instead of providing them with guidance and humanitarian assistance. In that sense the movie turns Tony Stark into a fallen man looking for redemption, because in the fictional universe that this movie takes place in the Afghani rebels carry weapons with a Stark Enterprises logo on them.

After a long and humorous sequence of scenes where Tony Stark tests and modifies his new inventions, he finally emerges as the modern incarnation of Iron Man; ready to fight the rebels and take back the weapons he irresponsibly sold to both sides of the conflict.

Still Robert Downy Jr. is not forced to carry this movie alone. Instead he is accompanied by Terrence Howard who plays James Rhodes, Tony Stark’s friend and body guard who rarely gets enough thanks for his job. Also Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges excel as the people behind the scenes of Stark Industries and both step into more important roles near the movies end. If anything one can be a little put off by the movies unintentional Team America vibe of heavy metal screeching as our hero blows up terrorists. Still I’m sure there will be as many people cheering for those scenes as there will be detractors and honestly full on war is as good a backdrop as any for our summer explosion fix. While it will be far from being the best movie this year I do consider it one of the best popcorn flicks we will see all summer, or at least until the next big comic book movie comes out. I think that will be the Incredible Hulk, which has comic book fans foaming at the mouth already.