The latest superhero to grace the big screen is Iron Man in Marvel Comic’s anticipated self-produced movie. This summer’s first blockbuster is breezy and fun, but perhaps just a bit too much so.

With the recent explosion of viral marketing campaigns and Cold War type secrecy surrounding many of this years blockbusters there had been something refreshing about Iron Man’s straight down the line publicity campaign. When the first footage of Iron Man appeared last year at Comic Con it was already a hit with the fans. The casting of Robert Downey Jr as the billionaire and man inside the suit Tony Stark seemed inspired. This casting was of course in part down to the fact that Marvel themselves were now the studio and they could choose the actors for roles instead of the actors for the billboards. Of course it wasn’t just Downey Jr who inspired confidence but other character actors such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges aswell.

But the one choice by Marvel that seemed odd with some was that of director Jon Favreau, who had little experience and whose most recent films had been a broad Christmas comedy in Elf and a sci-fi Goonies of sort in Zathura. In short, his CV, although once the ultimate fighting champion, was not of the caliber of either Chris Nolan or Sam Raimi, who had accomplished so much in their respective comic adaptations. Nonetheless, Favreau said the right things at Comic Con, paying tribute to the doors opened by Batman Begins and talking with genuine passion about the nature of Tony Stark’s character as the ‘unlikeable guy’ who was still a superhero.

It is certainly appropriate that Favreau recognizes Batman Begins‘ influence as this film could very well have been called Iron Man Begins: It sticks to the same origin structure which was so popular for Nolan but in doing so falls prey to what Edward Norton, who plays the new Bruce Banner/Incredible Hulk, noted recently is a tendency to “race through that origin story” and comes across as “obligatory” instead of careful character expansion.

This being said, Iron Man is far from a poor film. Paltrow as Stark’s loyal assistant is surprisingly warm, witty and yet still manages to give Potts and endearing hint of goofiness on occasion. Likewise Bridges is intriguing as Stark’s life-long companion and business partner Obadiah and gives a strong performance in combining physical presence with subtle acting. A carpenter is only as good as his tools though and Terrence Howard is let down badly by the script in terms of story contribution and dialogue and is left with what amounts to a handful of cameos.

Perhaps the reason for this is simple, it is Robert Downey Jr’s film and his alone. There is barely a single scene that does not feature RDJ and his portrayal as the modern Howard Hawkes meets (insert technological wizard here) is spell bindingly enigmatic. Born to play it? Probably. He is funny, arrogant and still sympathetic but it is hard to feel like RDJ couldn’t have given much more. Not through his own lack of effort but in having an actor of RDJ’s quality and a character as complicated as Tony Stark there is in truth very little of the inner character revealed in terms of his demons. Marvel undoubtedly have in Iron Man a tortured soul in a similar vein to that of Bruce Wayne, in that Stark is complicated, depressive and a sucker for substance abuse, and yes this will undoubtedly be revealed in the inevitable sequels, but its impossible not to feel like this was a wasted opportunity to layer a rich character.

Undoubtedly this comes down to the very conscious decision to keep this movie very light in tone. It tries its hardest to separate itself in tone from so called ‘darker’ films and the dialogue is breezy, scenes are annoyingly well lit and the music upbeat but perhaps this was not the story to adapt such an approach with. Transformers? Yes. Fantastic 4? Yes. But here it doesn’t quite sit right.

That all being said, Iron Man is a fun, enjoyable film and is certainly going to please the vast majority and there remains a great deal to be optimistic about in the likely sequels. Solid, but plenty of room for improvement.

Posted by Force Majeur in Iron Man, Movies, Reviews • Add to del.icio.us Add to Digg