Yes, I am Ironman

A bit late of a review for the most costly produced 2008 Summer blockbuster, but at least it didn’t disappoint. So let’s get the most important question, is it good? Yes. Yes it does. It’s not on the realistic level of Batman Begins so I would put it in between Spiderman and Fantastic Four. I placed it there because although the film deals with realistic issues of war and terrorism, it also has a lot of gags and jokes in the film. (I especially thought the visual metaphor of fisting to be very very cheeky)

The film would most closely resemble Spiderman 1. As the film starts off pretty quickly with our hero, Tony Stark, in a situation that grants his power. In this case, he is mortally injured and must create a device which sustains his life… evolving into the Ironman suit.

Audience is then taken on a journey of Stark learning his abilities and using it for good. In the end, using it to defeat an adversary. Though, I am yet to see a superhero film with an actual hard villian to defeat. When are we going to see a Sephiroth?

The casting was well chosen with Robert Downey Jr. fitting the part of a wise cracking jerk billionaire turned physical philanthropist truthfully. The whole film was essentially on his shoulders. I felt that the other actors didn’t do too bad, but Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrence Howard’s characters needed much more development. I felt that they only had dialogue to give RDJ something to work with.

Terrence Howard actually looked like he was going to be in tears in every scene of his. Maybe he was sick? Oh, and wait for extra footage after the entire credits, “That’s so gangsta!” was the response of this dude that commented throughout the whole film. And for Jeff Bridges? Well, as I said, I’m yet to see a villain that is deep. Maybe The Prince of Clowns will fulfill that missing narrative in The Dark Knight.

I was a bit confused with two locations in the film. For someone that has no idea how the Airforce works, I did not know where the air traffic monitoring scene was set in. Also, a scene where Pepper Pott had to access computer files, it wasn’t clear who’s office she went to. That scene was meant to be suspenseful, but after seeing the screensaver of a hot rod, I was thinking how is it scary to go to Tony Stark’s office?

The action in the film was top notch. Ironman dodging F22 Raptors and fighting militias were cool, but not as on the seat action as Superman Returns were (saving a falling plane is just crazy.. just Super). The CGI in Ironman was flawless. I guess that’s the advantage of modeling inorganic objects.

Overall, the film was a good watch and I would say is just under Batman Begins and Spiderman. It would’ve surpassed those films if the writers chose to put Tony Stark in harder situations and have more to lose than just his family’s honor. But I guess Ironman is just too smart to get into sticky situations. As Christopher Nolan, director of Batman Begins said, “The turning point for Bruce is when he realises that he’s not immortal, that even as Batman, he will still fail. So we made him fall off a building in flames.”

4/5