by Art Skimpole

Created on: May 11, 2008

IRON(Y), MAN(!)

There are several ways to summarize Iron Man, but the most apt seems to be: the primary strength of this film is its weakness. I could deploy a whole arsenal of bad puns here, of course, e.g. there are plenty of chinks in the armor; the plot machinery is rusty; the characters are robotic; the protagonist is a tin man with no heart, etc. The act of putting those possibilities on display is perfectly in keeping with the playful, wryly winking nature of the project, which is ultimately as clever as the guy who was sitting behind me during the film. He talked on a blasted cell-phone with a woman who clearly did not love him for ten solid minutes.

Tony Stark, who is played very adroitly by everyone's favorite genius parolee from detox, Robert Downey Jr., is a billionaire playboy, a technological wunderkind who makes Tessla look like a chimp. Downey infuses ample vitality into the role, though devotees of his Oscar-nominated turn in Chaplin will recognize some of the slapstick vocabulary he collected from that exercise here, particularly during some genuinely funny test-drives of his mechanical death-dealing duds. He throws off wisecracks like a malfunctioning carnival ride throws off dismayed tourists. The film opens in medias res as Stark rides along with some American grunts in Afghanistan. Their patrol is hit by "insurgents"how long will it take for names and things to become totally estranged?
who we will later come to know as "The Ten Rings," and Stark is abducted by them. The attack that allowed them to seize him leaves him with shrapnel lodged in his chest. It would have migrated into his heart and sent him off to the dirt nap, were it not for the expertise of a genial fellow who uses an electromagnet to keep it harmlessly at bay, surgically implanting it in Stark's chest and linking it to-three guesses-a car battery.

Some slick retrospective exposition lets us know who we're dealing with: Stark is the head of a massive arms manufacturing firm that thrives on his astonishing imagination and expertise. The firm was kept running while the eccentric Einstein "found himself" by Obadiah Stain (nomenclature is a real problem in the Marvel films. Stark's girl Friday, played with characteristic "just because I'm a willowy, ravishing Hollywood princess doesn't mean I can't be taken seriously as an actress" flair by Gwyneth Paltrow, is dubbed Pepper Potts. Bond villainess, anyone?) played by Jeff Bridges. His name telegraphs his nature. Sure the naked

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