The first superhero in a summer rife with them does not have innate superpowers.
The actor playing him does.
Tony Stark, high-flying scion of weapons contractor Stark Industries, becomes Iron Man out of necessity.
As for Robert Downey Jr.: Well, who understands where the dark-eyed, swift-gabbing actor’s gifts come from, exactly?
But his turn as the industrialist who has a change of heart — literally and figuratively — is a pleasure to behold.
Downey owns all of cinema’s dimensions. He delivers lines, written by a cadre of screenwriters, with grace and muscularity. He’s masterful with the rhythms of joke and tease. (He’s Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant balled into one fast-talking, wisecracking package.) He makes listening a sensual pleasure.
Sitting and tippling in a Humvee in Afghanistan, he chats up three Stark-struck soldiers. After all, Stark Industry is the military’s go-to contractor.
A soldier asks to take a picture with Stark. He’s game, then quips “No gang signs.” It’s a minor yet pitch perfect toss-off line.
Downey moves with an uncanny awareness of the camera (proving why he was cast as Charlie Chaplin in Richard Attenborough’s 1992 bio- pic). Stark isn’t ripped. Downey allows him a little sway in his back that pushes his belly forward.
Directed with joyful verve and a nice pinch of cultural nerve by Jon Favreau, “Iron Man” reinvigorates hope in the joys of the summer movie. It is simple — and not so simple — fun.
The iron-clad casting of Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane, fatherly surrogate, corporate partner and Judas; Gywneth Paltrow as girl Friday Pepper Pots; and Terrence Howard as Col. Rhodes builds an even sturdier entertainment. (Comic fans familiar with Rhodes’ own foray into superhero-dom be warned: “Rhodey” — and Howard — doesn’t come into his own here.)
Dreamed up by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Don Heck and Jack Kirby back in the early ’60s for Marvel Comics, Tony Stark and his iron-encased alter ego operated in a Cold War world.
Stark operates in a world very much like our own.
That game banter in the Humvee? It ends badly. Death happens. Stark is kidnapped.
In a cave in the Afghanistan mountains, dire need meets engineering ingenuity. (Later on, corporate greed and Middle Eastern ideology will also do a counter tango.)
Insurgent leader Raza (Faran Tahir) wants his own version of Stark Industries’ latest weapon of massive destruction. Shaun Toub is on hand to aid and interpret for Stark — and no doubt to balance the depiction of Middle Easterners.
Given the surveillance, it’s a little hard to buy Stark’s uninterrupted inventing. He’s actually at work on a better pacemaker for his shrapnel- weakened ticker. But like any popcorn movie worth its seasoning salt, the fleet story helps us shrug off the super(hero) improbable.
He returns to the U.S. a changed man. Though his announcement that he wants to remake his company is about as well-received as Jerry Maguire’s mission statement.
A great deal of fun comes just watching Stark at work in his sleek subterranean laboratory, tweaking and spit-shining his red-and-gold Iron Man get-up. His fleet of high-horsepower cars stand neglected for the most part.
“Iron Man” revels in the fantasies of a sexy, even honorable, geekdom where genius tinkerers get harangued then bedded then grilled yet again by foxy “Vanity Fair” reporters. They win at the craps table, too.
It’s also a realm in which sociopolitical epiphanies lead to grand blueprints and swift execution of machines of peace — and prosperity.
“Iron Man” is superhero escapism for what ails a superpower. And it goes down like a tonic (with gin) thanks to Robert Downey Jr.
Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com; also on blogs.denverpostcom/madmoviegoer
“Ironman”
PG-13 for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and brief suggestive content. 2 hours. Directed by Jon Favreau; written by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway; photography by Matthew Libatique; starring Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Shaun Toub, Gwyneth Paltrow. Opens today at area theaters.
