Iron Man: Movie Review (2008)

Directed by Jon Favreau, written by Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, 126 minutes, rated PG-13.

At its core, Jon Favreau’s “Iron Man” is about one man’s massive mid-life crisis, and all the drama that springs from it.

It goes down like this: While in Afghanistan shucking his company’s latest slew of weapons to U.S. military officials, the cocky, ultra-smart billionaire industrialist Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr., perfect) is forced to look back upon his life when the Taliban suddenly ambush him with his own weapons.

It doesn’t take Stark long to realize that the U.S. has been selling Stark’s wares to the enemy--and what does that say about his own contributions to the state of the world?

Making matters worse for Stark is that he starts having chest pains--not that that’s a surprise. During the ambush, a bomb blew shrapnel into Stark’s chest, which now threatens his heart. Finally, since no mid-life crisis would be complete without flashy new duds and a swank new relationship, Stark creates a suite of virtually indestructible Iron Man suits that allow him the power of fight and flight, and then he falls for his assistant, Pepper Potts, who is played with cool knowingness by a very good Gwyneth Paltrow.

It’s the culmination of all this (and more) that leaves Stark to decide he needs to do something meaningful with his life, which for him means changing the direction of Stark Industries. At a press conference, he unleashes the surprise that his company no longer will make weapons for the government. It’s a statement that creates ripples throughout the world, the stock market and most notably within Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges, bald and bearish), who helped to build Stark Industries from its infancy and who isn’t about to let Tony ruin it now.

Without given any more away, what unfolds is one hugely enjoyable popcorn movie, and not necessarily because of its special effects, which are as seamless as anything audiences enjoyed in last year’s “Transformers.”

For the most part, the movie’s pleasures come from the attention paid to its script, its accomplished performances and the fact that the movie is driven by its characters first, its action second.

About the action. As impressive as it is (watching Stark learn how to fly as Iron Man is a highlight), the reason the movie works as well as it does is for the very reason most good movies work as well as they do--you care about the characters, the plot is involving, the production is polished.

Based on Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway’s script--which itself is based on the Iron Man character Stan Lee helped to created in 1963 in response to the Vietnam War--“Iron Man” finds all involved skirting the typical superhero pitfalls (specifically, teen angst) to break new ground within an otherwise overworked genre. In the process, they’ve come through with one of the freshest, most satisfying outings the medium has seen in awhile.

Grade: A-