Iron Man: Hero Or Drunk?

Iron Man rocks. Robert Downey Jr. rocks. I knew my boy Favreau wouldn't let me down after the job he did on Elf! After I saw Elf, I said "go get this guy Iron Man. He can do the job."

This was the most well-paced superhero film I've ever seen, and I saw Super Fuzz.

I tell you, they start you right out in the thick of it. Throw you right into the mix. Then the flashback, "how did we get here?" But they kept that shit BRIEF and ON-POINT. And the whole "origin scene" bit...normally the most boring part of the superhero movie - where they spend 30 minutes laying ten layers of bricks to try to support your suspension of disbelief later as to how mortal man can do such feats - well, the whole "how did he get that way?" portion of this film is a joy to watch! They make it interesting, exciting, and (in an alternate-dimension-where-one-guy-can-design-and-build-a-complex-integrated-system-from-scratch, each-of-the-most-minor-components-of-which-would-take-decades-to-develop-in-our-world sort of way) even plausible.

It didn't even matter that the big fight at the end was a shot-for-shot remake of the climax of Robocop II. It still worked like a charm. Except I wasn't sure just how exactly Lex Luthor's limbs were supposed to be situated in that suit.

Downey's Tony Stark is what we've been missing in our superhero millionaire alter-egos. Let's face it, Bruce Wayne never has any damn fun with his money! His whole existence is a self-inflicted Lenten penance for not stopping his parents from getting shot when he was like five. And his whole emotional life's growth was arrested right then and there! Even when he looks like he's having fun, he's only pretending to have fun. It's his cover. Stark, on the other hand, is a grownup: a man who may be a driven genius, but he lives to blow off steam - and he takes advantage of the means at his disposal to do so. He's a man whose conflict stems not from childhood trauma, but from the consequences of his own actions as an adult. And when he realizes what he needs to do, it isn't some pre-adolescent's magnified vengeance-personified fantasy crusade. It's just what he has to do, to clean up his own mess. It's maturity.

At this point it becomes semi-obligatory for me to concede that as badass as Iron Man clearly is, and as plainly ludicrous as it is on the face of things to say this, the fact nevertheless remains that Batman can "beat him in a fight." Batman is assumed to have a tricky well-crafted foolproof plan all set and ready to go to take down ANY superhero, even the ones that work for other comics companies and, consequently, do not operate in Batman's universe. Batman doesn't care. Batman is ready regardless.

Performances strong all around. Gwynnie Paltrow does her thing to perfection in this one, and somehow it works anyway. Lex Luthor does a great job as Obidiah Stane, even growing a beard for that extra layer of evil. Terrence Howard as Rhodey "Jim" Rhodes provides a surprisingly human moral center. Usually when a black guy plays the moral center sidekick to the flawed hero, they make him kind of off-puttingly polly-pureheart perfect. Then they kill him. But Rhodey's a flesh and blood, funny guy. Then they kill him.

No, I'm kidding. Then they let him live. For now.

But the key to it all is the man in the suit. I can't imagine this film with any other actor in the lead. Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark.

SPOILER ALERT!

Tony Stark is IRON MAN.