Iron Man

By 2008 the superhero/comic book adaptation process was pretty much a summer blockbuster standard. The Dark Knight was months away from release, The Incredible Hulk was in the process of its own reboot, Spider-man now had its own billion dollar trilogy, X-men was dabbling in a post-trilogy prequel stage, Superman Returns had been and gone, Daredevil was all but a dirty memory that lingered at the back of movie goers minds and Fantastic Four had been the victim to two terrible feature films. By the time I heard about an Iron Man film, I had lost considerable interest. Every year was starting to become the same. Superhero this, Superhero that. I just couldn’t be bothered anymore. There’s only so many times I can watch a man save the world in a pair of tights before wishing that I was back in the good old days of Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis (kind of).

Things were beginning to feel a little bit standard with each passing superhero film. It had been three years since Batman Begins came along and reinvented the genre, so things were starting to become somewhat stale again. How much longer could they carry on with this conventional misunderstood superhero who uses his superpowers to fight evil in the name of a dead relative or in order to win the heart of that girl who he’s had a life long crush on?

But then Iron Man didn’t feel like any of these previous releases. It sure as hell wasn’t a reinvention of the genre in the sense that Batman Begins was, but it certainly felt different. I guess the best way to describe the 2008 introduction to Tony Stark is by saying that it added a bit of Jazz into this prevalent genre. Instead of the angst ridden teenager who tries to deal with the tightrope troubles of balancing his personal life with his responsibilities, we had an amusing, sophisticated and sassy story that decided not to take itself too seriously.

This is where the film really managed to catch my eye, because in recent times, this genre – which at its core is quite a far fetched adventure romp – was starting to consider itself as a category that was full of gravitas. There is not really a problem with such films taking a more serious stance on the themes and stories that they tell, but it was starting to get a tad cliché’. The idea of turning all of these heroes into angst ridden personas full of doom and gloom was a prospect that didn’t seem all that exciting to me. Batman Begins managed to pull off the whole gravitas portrayal perfectly, but I didn’t want every comic book/superhero film doing that now did I?

Instead of following in the heavy themed nature of Batman Begins, the socially metaphorical X-Men or the emotionally bulky Spider-man trilogy, Iron Man decided to kick back its feet and take a completely different path all together. The film’s protagonist was Tony Stark, a billionaire playboy who also happens to be the son of an incredibly successful arms dealer. When Stark is kidnapped by terrorists and forced to a weapon for them, he decides to use his brain in order to construct a suit which will help him and one of his fellow prisoners escape. Once free, Stark decides to invest all of his time and money into expanding his idea of a superhuman suit which will inevitably be used to combat evil.

Though the film’s catalyst is caused by a man who decides to undo the harm that his weapons have caused by fighting evil, the film rarely bathes in this theme for too long; instead choosing to focus most of its energy on the entertainment factor of Tony Stark and his cool robotic outfit.

And this is where most of the joy from this film can be found. The first segment of the movie generates its entertainment from Stark building the first edition of his suit. Him and his fellow prisoner – Yinsen –start to construct a machine which they hope will help to free them both from the world which they have found themselves trapped within. As an audience, we know what is coming. We have seen the trailers and are completely aware of what film we have walked into. But the story decides to take its time getting from point A to B. In a strange way, it loosely parallels Batman Begins in the way that it’s a film that doesn’t simply show its hero in action, but shows its hero during the developmental stages. The only difference here is that it’s not fastidiously exploring necessarily why Stark becomes a superhero, but instead extracts its entertainment factor from the nuts and bolts assembly of Stark’s Iron Man.

The escape from Stark and Yinsen’s prison reveals a version of Iron Man which is worlds apart from the one we initially paid to see. It is a beta version of the superhero; a large tin beast that resembles anything but the red and gold flying machine that was plastered across posters. This makes way for the second segment of the film; which is essentially a remake of segment one. Part two, however, is a little more light on its feet and void of the dangers of part one.

Having a prototype Iron Man before the proper version was a nice idea. It gives the transition of regular to hero a bit more exploration room than a lot of the other superhero films which have popped up over recent periods. Again, this is something that was extracted from Batman Begins, but here, it’s done in a more visual heavy manner. Whilst we get a few scenes of Bruce Wayne sneaking around Gotham in a hooded mask, we never really get to see a primitive design of the Batsuit. In Iron Man however, we get to see two types of our superhero; the bulky, unfinished design and the sleek, advanced version. It's a bit like a comic book adaptation of Steve Jobs going from designing the iPod classic to the iPod touch (terrible example, but who cares. I'm not getting paid to write this shit).

Segment two seems to be having a lot more fun with the development of “proper” Iron Man that segment one did. This is mainly to do with the fact that Stark now has the freedom and money to play around with his concepts; giving the plot more room to throw in some fancy gadgets at the viewers faces (plus a couple of sexy vehicles too). Also, Segment one had to take itself a little more seriously than the second part. This is mainly because not only were our heroes stuck in a life threatening situation, but they were also imprisoned in a foreign country by a group of extremists. The plot couldn’t get too self-parodic at this point, as it could end up coming across as insulting and offensive. Here we have none of the gloom and doom of Stark’s cave; allowing the screenwriters freedom to play around with Stark and his fancy gadgets in the most light hearted manner possible.

I like Iron Man a lot, but the film seems to only be truly in its element during these exploration and suit-building scenes. As soon as the plot tries to do other things on the side, everything just gets a tad boring. Ok, so it’s also fun to watch Robert Downy Jr. flirt and charm the heck out of everyone around him, but as soon as the film attempts to slip into romance mode or villain confrontation, the whole thing begins to shake a little under its own feet.

The film is at its best when it’s being smart and nonchalant, which seems to only be the case whenever Stark is playfully experimenting with his own knowledge and finances. It’s the building of Iron Man which allows the film to be playful and quirky, but such qualities seem to saunter off temporarily whenever we see Stark having semi-romantic chats with Pepper Pots or deep gumbling confrontations with Jeff Bridge’s Obadiah Stane.

One of the ways that I like to describe Iron Man is by comparing it to a classy, smart, yet superficial extrovert. If the film was a human, then it would be the sort of person who everyone else wanted to be like, could easily pass an exam and could bed any guy or girl they wanted. They would have a way with words and be most certainly be a switched on character. But the moment they start to act sincere or love bitten, people find it impossible to take them seriously. They may well be Mr and Mrs Charm, but they are not Romeo and Juliet.

Iron Man manages to stay fun for a majority of the time, mainly because most of the movie is dedicated to this smart and stylish construction plot. Yet there are times where it decides to abandon it in the hope of doing something else with the script. The main example and problem of this happening takes place in the film’ climax. Suddenly Stark has built Iron Man and is ready to battle the film’s core antagonist; Obadiah Stane. It is at this point that the film forgets about its previous intriguing qualities and becomes a standard Hollywood flick. You have the kidnapped Pepper Pots, the loud action scenes, the choreographed fight sequences, the unambiguous enemy and the hero who manages to secure victory at the last second.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with these moments of course, they’re just not as entertaining as the other parts of the film. In comparison to the fun theatricals of Stark trying to perfect his suit, everything just gets a little boring. The script works best when it spends its time allowing Downy Jr. to put on a show, not when it’s blowing shit up. The blowing shit up is fine, it’s just feels weak amongst the more entertaining moments.

But after the average climax, we get a great final moment where Tony Stark stands up and reveals to the press that he’s Iron Man. This is a lovely breath of fresh air and was an oddly liberating scene in such a film. Whilst most superheroes decide to conceal their true identity to the world, Stark just decides to say “fuck it” and comes out to everyone. Yes, I know that I just used the word “come out” to describe his revelation as Iron Man, but after all the heavy use of heroes concealing their identities, the revelation of such a truth does seem to resemble that of a character concealing a deep secret which would inevitably rock the worlds of all those whom they know. The fact that Stark just decided to sod consequence and pretty much go “yep, I’m Iron Man” stays true to the film’s highly confident approach.

Iron Man is an audacious and sassy film which has the balls to be quirky, smart and playful with its narrative. It’s nothing hugely game changing, but it’s a really enjoyable chunk of entertainment that helps to remind us that the superhero genre is far from drying up.