If you’re looking for a fun summer blockbuster but can’t bear the $10 admission, just tap into last season’s offerings. “Iron Man” was an ’08 smash, and although a bit cliche, Robert Downey Jr.’s charm makes the two hours fly by. And anyway, who doesn’t like a summer comic book flick?
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It’s got all the elements of your classic superhero movie: A little average guy/no super powers (“Batman”); a little mentor/confidant-turned-enemy (“Spiderman”). You can pick the main characters out from a mile away. Downey Jr. is Tony Stark, a multimillionaire playboy weapons manufacturer with the brains of Einstein. (Sounds like he was a superhero to start with, if you ask us.) Gwyneth Paltrow is his perfectly organized assistant Pepper Potts who he may or may not fall in love with over the course of the film, and Terrence Howard (as Rhodey) and Jeff Bridges (as Obadiah Stane) are his personal pilot and business partner, respectively, each of who may or may not betray and or/lose faith in him. Sound familar? It should. It’s your standard superhero blockbuster.
After Stark is held captive overseas for three months, he returns to his company a changed man– he’s seen American soldiers killed with the weapons he’s invented to protect them, and he’ll no longer be a part of it. Instead, he starts secret basement work on a suit of armor– a prototype of which he crudely constructed in the desert to help him escape alive. And eventually, Iron Man is born. Even though, as Stark points out, the suit is actually made of a gold-titanium alloy. (Oh that comic book press…always making up names for their superheroes. Another classic Stan Lee move.)
But what more is there really to say about “Iron Man”? Not much. It’s entertaining, and it’s summer, and you want to be entertained. And that’s about it. Downey Jr. is endearing, you’ll like him, and you’ll look forward to next May’s sequel (most especially Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow). But that’s about it. And sometimes, that’s about all it needs to be.
