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IRON MAN
With Robert Downey Jr. in front of the camera and Jon Favreau behind it, the 2008 comic book adventure Iron Man is an ambitious technical achievement and fabulous time-waster, despite an overly complex screenplay that takes a little too long to get where it's going, but it's a pretty fun ride once it gets going.
This comic book adventure wrapped up in a story of corporate espionage introduces us to Tony Stark, a billionaire playboy who is the heir apparent of Stark Industries, a large company whose primary industry is military weaponry. When Tony is injured during a weapons demonstration in Iraq, he is seriously injured but healed with the aid of a car battery where his heart is. While being held by enemy soldiers who want him to construct a missile for them, he somehow manages to construct a special suit to aid him to escape and upon escape, decides to close the military portion of his company and take his special suit to the next level, the super hero level.
Based on Stan Lee-created characters, the screenplay is overly detailed and spends too much time on exposition and if you're going to have this much exposition, it should not leave anything unexplained, in particular, the soldiers holding Tony prisoner have cameras in the cave where he's being held and are allegedly gauging his process on this missile, but Tony manages to construct this suit without them knowing about it, yet, by the time Tony returns home, his co-CEO, Obediah Stain (Jeff Bridges) already has people working on a similar suit.
Admittedly, I was able to let a lot of this just slide because of Robert Downey Jr.'s richly entertaining performance in the title role...this is one of those actors who could read the phone book and keep the viewer riveted. With the help of the writers, he never takes the character too seriously and keeps him steeped in realism...this is one of the few comic book super heroes I've seen where our hero is self-created and he doesn't even realize he's doing it...I love the middle section where he's back home working on the suit trying to perfect it and having to try things over and over when they don't work, much to the chagrin of loyal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) who is really horrible at disguising the fact that she's in love with her boss.
Favreau must be credited for assembling a crack technical team who have provided him with perfect looks, sounds, and technology to make this story viable, with special kudos to cinematography, art direction/set direction, visual effects, and sound. With a less convoluted screenplay, this movie could have been something really amazing, but Favreau's direction and the performances of Robert Downey Jr. and Jeff Bridges do keep this one sizzling once it gets going and the final showdown is spectacular.
With Robert Downey Jr. in front of the camera and Jon Favreau behind it, the 2008 comic book adventure Iron Man is an ambitious technical achievement and fabulous time-waster, despite an overly complex screenplay that takes a little too long to get where it's going, but it's a pretty fun ride once it gets going.
This comic book adventure wrapped up in a story of corporate espionage introduces us to Tony Stark, a billionaire playboy who is the heir apparent of Stark Industries, a large company whose primary industry is military weaponry. When Tony is injured during a weapons demonstration in Iraq, he is seriously injured but healed with the aid of a car battery where his heart is. While being held by enemy soldiers who want him to construct a missile for them, he somehow manages to construct a special suit to aid him to escape and upon escape, decides to close the military portion of his company and take his special suit to the next level, the super hero level.
Based on Stan Lee-created characters, the screenplay is overly detailed and spends too much time on exposition and if you're going to have this much exposition, it should not leave anything unexplained, in particular, the soldiers holding Tony prisoner have cameras in the cave where he's being held and are allegedly gauging his process on this missile, but Tony manages to construct this suit without them knowing about it, yet, by the time Tony returns home, his co-CEO, Obediah Stain (Jeff Bridges) already has people working on a similar suit.
Admittedly, I was able to let a lot of this just slide because of Robert Downey Jr.'s richly entertaining performance in the title role...this is one of those actors who could read the phone book and keep the viewer riveted. With the help of the writers, he never takes the character too seriously and keeps him steeped in realism...this is one of the few comic book super heroes I've seen where our hero is self-created and he doesn't even realize he's doing it...I love the middle section where he's back home working on the suit trying to perfect it and having to try things over and over when they don't work, much to the chagrin of loyal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) who is really horrible at disguising the fact that she's in love with her boss.
Favreau must be credited for assembling a crack technical team who have provided him with perfect looks, sounds, and technology to make this story viable, with special kudos to cinematography, art direction/set direction, visual effects, and sound. With a less convoluted screenplay, this movie could have been something really amazing, but Favreau's direction and the performances of Robert Downey Jr. and Jeff Bridges do keep this one sizzling once it gets going and the final showdown is spectacular.