Iron Man Is Surprisingly Good

Monday, May 5 at 6:49 p.m.

We went to see Iron Man this weekend and it's not because I'm a fan boy.

The movie was surprisingly good! Robert Downey Jr. performs the role of Tony Stark with what can only be described as aplomb-- that is, if anything can only be described as "aplomb". Evidence! Downey, himself a millionaire playboy, seems to be having a wonderful time playing a billionaire playboy who's eventually "asploded" by an IED of his own company's manufacture.

Long story short: Stark, a mechanical genius, builds a truly radical robot suit and becomes Iron Man. He flies in his suit to Afghanistan and kills some warlords, then flies back to California (L.A.? Malibu? Whatever, the other wang-shaped state) to fight a knockoff robot suit made by the defense contractor that earned him his billions, but he has sense disavowed. Internal Conflict!

Also - remember that Batman never considers the moral ramifications of what Wayne Industries has wrought.

Nor does batman build his own cool shit in his own cool shop.

With nods to the American myths of the garage entrepreneur building something great (the Iron Man suit is literally tested out in Stark's garage) and the All-American art of corporate espionage (his former company steals his design and makes "enhancements" which cause the knockoff suit to be clunky, slow and ultimately defatigable), Iron Man sets out and proves to be more entertaining than your average brainless blockbuster.

Truly entertaining.

P.S. Favorite scene? When the bald-headed Steve Ballmer-esque villain is haranguing his hapless white-coated engineer about copying the Iron Man suit's design. The engineer says, "It's impossible!"

I've been both the villainous boss and the engineer in that spot.

51 comments follow

Agree....and disagree.

I agree that Iron Man was very good. I always expected it to be, however. Much of my youth was spent reading Iron Man comics, and I was intrigued by the story of a troubled Tony Stark whose personal problems led him to alcoholism.

They glossed over Tony's epic battles with the sauce in the movie, but that's understandable. Perhaps in the sequel we'll see some more character developmet.

A couple points on Batman though:

a.) Although Bruce does rely on his pal Lucius Fox to do a lot of R&D for him, he does do a lot of geeky tech stuff on his own as well. It is downplayed in Batman Begins, but it is there (i.e. fashioning his own batarangs, customizing the suit, building the batcave, etc.)

b.)Batman never had to wonder about the moral ramifications of Wayne Enterprises because the company his father built never dealt in weapons. Sure, they did R&D that often was stolen/fell into the wrong hands, but traditionally Wayne Enterprises is an innocuous and philanthropic organization (remember that the efforts of Wayne senior foiled Ras Al ghul's plans for economic destruction of Gotham). Only the Batman Begins movie puts weapons development into the story, and even then it is implied that it was done without Bruce's knowledge by a ruthless businessman that took over his father's company.

A similar plot device is found in this Iron Man movie. Not very creative, in my opinion.

I love Tony Stark, but when you get right down to it, he's just Marvel's version of Batman.

And yes, this is what you get when you dabble in the realm of fanboys. :)

Nice blog, btw.

-Ramsey