Chief
05-01-2008, 05:19 AM
http://www.nypost.com/seven/05012008/entertainment/movies/steels_the_screen_108909.htm
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/SeniorChieftain/AA%20CARTOONS/ent061.jpg
May 1, 2008 --
WHEN Marvel took over producing its own movies, it made a decision that was as unlikely as it was inspired: hiring the enormously gifted Robert Downey Jr. to play the deeply flawed hero of "Iron Man.
Marvel also counter-intuitively brought in Jon Favreau ("Swingers," "Elf") to helm the project, and it's been repaid with one of the hippest, best-written and best-directed superhero movies ever - a splendid way to kick off the summer movie season.
Downey's Tony Stark is no anguished teenager like Peter Parker: He's a boozing, billionaire weapons manufacturer and inventor (originally modeled on Howard Hughes) pushing middle age, whose private jet comes equipped with pole-dancing stewardesses.
Arrogant and flippant (listen carefully for a hilarious double-entendre involving Vanity Fair), Tony gets his comeuppance when a US military caravan he's traveling with in Afghanistan is ambushed.
In a clever twist on contemporary politics, Tony is waterboarded, hooded and held captive in a cave by insurgents who order him to build a missile - out of parts he's shocked to learn come from his own company.
With the help of a doctor (Shaun Toub) who saved his life, Tony outwits his captors and instead constructs a crude suit that turns him into Iron Man 1.0. For those who missed the trailer, that's an armored, flying superhero who shoots what looks suspiciously like napalm at his enemies (the episode is loosely inspired by a 1963 comic-book story set in Vietnam).
Tony returns to America a changed man. He announces he's getting out of the armaments business, alarming his business partner Obadiah Stone (a marvelous Jeff Bridges with a shaved head and goatee), who looks like he's going to stab Tony in the back every time he gives him a bearhug.
Favreau and his two teams of screenwriters devote a lot of the film's unhurried first hour to developing the characters. There are many loving shots of Tony soldering and welding his Iron Man 2.0 suit, and some hilarious footage of test flights in and around his version of the Bat Cave, a subterranean lair beneath his clifftop Malibu home.
Some of my colleagues think there's a liberal agenda at play here, but it seems to me that "Iron Man," like many big-budget Hollywood films (this one reportedly cost $265 million) engages in a careful political balancing act.
When Tony finally rolls out the splendidly designed, red-and-gold Iron Man 3.0 suit to wreak vengeance on his captors, he's careful to spare civilians - just as the screenwriters are careful not to spell out the captors' precise political affiliations. And this may be the first movie to portray the Department of Homeland Security even semi-sympathetically.
It's worth noting that Iron Man is far from invulnerable. He depends on an electromagnetic device inserted into his heart to keep shrapnel he picked up during the earlier attack from killing him - and to power his Iron Man suit.
His heart also proves vulnerable to his long-suffering gal Friday, Pepper Potts, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, a much less icy presence here than she's ever been on the screen. (She has a more substantial part than Terrence Howard, who has little to do but look astounded as Tony's military liaison.)
But first and foremost, this is Downey's show. The actor, who was virtually unemployable just a few years ago because of his drug problems, embraces Tony's flaws and comes up with a deeply soulful performance - as well as delivering one-liners (there are many good ones here) better than anyone else in the business.
I found the climax, which predictably pits Iron Man against Obadiah in his own high-tech suit, something of a disappointment - though the young fans of "Transformers" may well love their metal-on-metal clash.
With such smarts and outstanding special effects, I eagerly await a second "Iron Man" movie, which of course is virtually promised in the final scene.
lou.lumenick@nypost.com
IRON MAN
Running time: 126 minutes. Rated PG-13 (sci-fi acting and violence, brief suggestiveness). Tonight at the Ziegfeld, the Lincoln Square, the Chelsea, others.
mrgrn
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/SeniorChieftain/AA%20CARTOONS/ent061.jpg
May 1, 2008 --
WHEN Marvel took over producing its own movies, it made a decision that was as unlikely as it was inspired: hiring the enormously gifted Robert Downey Jr. to play the deeply flawed hero of "Iron Man.
Marvel also counter-intuitively brought in Jon Favreau ("Swingers," "Elf") to helm the project, and it's been repaid with one of the hippest, best-written and best-directed superhero movies ever - a splendid way to kick off the summer movie season.
Downey's Tony Stark is no anguished teenager like Peter Parker: He's a boozing, billionaire weapons manufacturer and inventor (originally modeled on Howard Hughes) pushing middle age, whose private jet comes equipped with pole-dancing stewardesses.
Arrogant and flippant (listen carefully for a hilarious double-entendre involving Vanity Fair), Tony gets his comeuppance when a US military caravan he's traveling with in Afghanistan is ambushed.
In a clever twist on contemporary politics, Tony is waterboarded, hooded and held captive in a cave by insurgents who order him to build a missile - out of parts he's shocked to learn come from his own company.
With the help of a doctor (Shaun Toub) who saved his life, Tony outwits his captors and instead constructs a crude suit that turns him into Iron Man 1.0. For those who missed the trailer, that's an armored, flying superhero who shoots what looks suspiciously like napalm at his enemies (the episode is loosely inspired by a 1963 comic-book story set in Vietnam).
Tony returns to America a changed man. He announces he's getting out of the armaments business, alarming his business partner Obadiah Stone (a marvelous Jeff Bridges with a shaved head and goatee), who looks like he's going to stab Tony in the back every time he gives him a bearhug.
Favreau and his two teams of screenwriters devote a lot of the film's unhurried first hour to developing the characters. There are many loving shots of Tony soldering and welding his Iron Man 2.0 suit, and some hilarious footage of test flights in and around his version of the Bat Cave, a subterranean lair beneath his clifftop Malibu home.
Some of my colleagues think there's a liberal agenda at play here, but it seems to me that "Iron Man," like many big-budget Hollywood films (this one reportedly cost $265 million) engages in a careful political balancing act.
When Tony finally rolls out the splendidly designed, red-and-gold Iron Man 3.0 suit to wreak vengeance on his captors, he's careful to spare civilians - just as the screenwriters are careful not to spell out the captors' precise political affiliations. And this may be the first movie to portray the Department of Homeland Security even semi-sympathetically.
It's worth noting that Iron Man is far from invulnerable. He depends on an electromagnetic device inserted into his heart to keep shrapnel he picked up during the earlier attack from killing him - and to power his Iron Man suit.
His heart also proves vulnerable to his long-suffering gal Friday, Pepper Potts, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, a much less icy presence here than she's ever been on the screen. (She has a more substantial part than Terrence Howard, who has little to do but look astounded as Tony's military liaison.)
But first and foremost, this is Downey's show. The actor, who was virtually unemployable just a few years ago because of his drug problems, embraces Tony's flaws and comes up with a deeply soulful performance - as well as delivering one-liners (there are many good ones here) better than anyone else in the business.
I found the climax, which predictably pits Iron Man against Obadiah in his own high-tech suit, something of a disappointment - though the young fans of "Transformers" may well love their metal-on-metal clash.
With such smarts and outstanding special effects, I eagerly await a second "Iron Man" movie, which of course is virtually promised in the final scene.
lou.lumenick@nypost.com
IRON MAN
Running time: 126 minutes. Rated PG-13 (sci-fi acting and violence, brief suggestiveness). Tonight at the Ziegfeld, the Lincoln Square, the Chelsea, others.
mrgrn