Dorkgasm Gonzo Is God

Boom!
By
Michael C. Riedlinger
Editor-In-Chief

            The Summer blockbuster season has arrived with a sonic boom. Marvel Comics’ Iron Man makes his CGI-tastic debut in this opening volley from Hollywood. Fans of the comic will be pleased, I think, and popcorn eaters the world over will rejoice in this new breed of super, but not too fanciful, hero. Be warned, it is next to impossible to review this film properly without spoilers, so stop reading if you want to be surprised.

            Still here? Good! The story follows drunk, womanizing Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr. in a role that seems typecast) as he wises up to the real world and gains a new sense of responsibility. Tony is a super genius and CEO of Stark Industries, one of the chief weapons suppliers to the United States Armed Forces. After downing some bourbon and boffing the reporter from Vanity Fair who wants to interview him, Tony heads to Afghanistan to show off his latest super-weapon, “The Jericho Missile”. I’m not a gear head or a weapons junky, but suffice to say, the missile kicks a lot of ass. After impressing the military brass, including his buddy Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard), our hero pours himself another drink and heads back to his private jet, only to be accosted by a band of Afghani rebels who call themselves “The Ten Rings”. Led by a guy named Raza (character actor Faran Tahir), the bad guys want Tony to apply his technical genius to build them a Jericho Missile all their own. Of course, Marvel fans will be disappointed to know that Raza doesn’t seem to be The Mandarin, and the name of this rebel band is the only reference to that villain in the film.

            As it goes, the terrorist group strikes a little too hard and Tony winds up with a load of shrapnel in his chest. The only way to keep the little shards of metal from working their way into his heart is for Tony to build a miniature Arc Reactor, a kind of sub-atomic electromagnetic power source, to wear in his chest, thus keeping the slivers of death at bay. Tony slowly befriends his fellow captive scientist, Yinsen (Shaun Toub, The Kite Runner), and they get to work on an escape plan. Yinsen doesn’t warm to Tony at first because, it turns out, the weapons the bad guys are using to kill people like his family are all made by Tony’s company. Between welding and reprogramming missile software, Tony sees the effects of his recklessness first-hand and vows to make a difference once he returns to society.

Click image to visit the site

            The anti-military-industrial complex message rings loud and clear from here on out. Tony dons his prototype armor, Yinsen sacrifices himself to buy the playboy some time, and Iron Man makes a hasty exit from the cave, shooting fire at every bit of weaponry he can find along the way. Once stateside again, Tony has his assistant, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), call a press conference where he announces that his company will no longer build weapons. Pepper deflects Tony’s debriefing by the “Strategic Homeland Intervention, Engagement and Logistics Division” (or S.H.I.E.L.D. for those comic dorks out there) agent, and Tony runs off to convince long-time family friend, and business partner, Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) that this new direction won’t destroy the company.

            Despite the departure from comic book cannon, Stane still comes off as an effective villain, and the familial relationship actually strengthens the impact of this character from the 1980’s. As Tony attempts to stop Stane from selling munitions to terrorists under the table, we discover that Stane set our hero up from the beginning. Raza and his band were supposed to assassinate Tony, but realized the job was worth far more than Stane was paying. They collect the remnants of the first Iron Man armor for Stane, left scattered about the desert, even as Tony improves upon his new suit at his estate in Malibu.

            The rest of the film plays out predictably. Stane creates the “Iron Monger” armor, has a giant-robo-fist fight with Iron Man, and Pepper fends off S.H.I.E.L.D. agents until they can actually do some good. When all is said and done, the bad guy is vanquished and Tony gets a pass from Uncle Sam, squandering it at a press conference by announcing that he is in fact Iron Man. Robert Downey Jr. does a great job playing a hero who has plenty of flaws, and none of the supporting cast ham up their roles just because the movie is based on a comic book. Director Jon Favreau (who has a cameo as one of Tony’s bodyguards) keeps the story and characters grounded in a sense of believability throughout in a move similar to Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins. We don’t get to see War Machine, though Rhodes does make mention of wanting to suit-up, and I was only slightly disappointed when the credits rolled without a mention of Nick Fury. On a hunch, I stayed through the credits, and I’m very happy to report that all the rumors were true. See Iron Man now, if only to hear Sam Jackson utter the words “The Avengers Initiative” for yourself.