Iron Man (2008)

I read Iron Man comics as a child. He wasn’t my favorite superhero (obviously). He wasn’t even my favorite Marvel superhero. But I always thought that it was cool he kept a suit of power armor in his briefcase. Some thoughts:

1. The movie has a strange “America is the savior of the world” feel to it. Some of the film is set in Afghanistan, and Iron Man the American hero is shown saving the lives of Afghan refugees and killing terrorists. The themes of the American weapons manufacturer coming to save the Afghans from terrorists is pretty indulgent and kinda imperialistic. Considering that the comic book was set in Vietnam, and Tony Stark basically did the same thing there, I don’t see how the filmmakers could have gotten over this aspect of the story. But it did leave me feeling uncomfortable, especially the scene where Tony starts torching an entire group of these terrorists before destroying their munitions.

2. I LOVED Gweneth Paltrow in the film. I usually can’t stand her, but she had a certain charm that was difficult to resist. Robert Downey Jr. was amazing, but I would have been shocked had he not been. Terrence Howard was a bit of a let down as Rhodey. I expected there to be a big blowup between him and Tony in the film. It happens all of the time in the comics, but it didn’t happen. Howard seemed to be Tony’s buddy who was mainly in the background.

3. The villain, the Iron Monger, sucked. His character in the comics was always an overblown dark reflection of Iron Man–but I couldn’t really see Jeff Bridges as all that devious.

4. Loved the suit. Loved the tech. My girlfriend whined about going to the film but was dancing to the soundtrack after we left, and decided that she loved it. te he…  Inasmuch as I am a sucker for cool armor suits, Robert Downey Jr., and ummm cool armor suits, I loved it as well.

~ by tharmas on May 3, 2008.