Iron Man (2008)

When I first heard "Iron Man" was getting the big-screen, live-action treatment, my initial reaction was absolute nerd fear. I have hundreds of Iron Man comic books from the 1980s and 1990s. The all-too-human Tony Stark as the ordinary hero in a metal fighting suit has been my lifelong favorite (behind only Spider-Man, but not always) read. Like Batman, Iron Man seemed more "real" to me. Stark was never bitten by a radioactive spider, or smacked with gamma rays or sent to and from in a rocket ship. He was a guy who reached a breaking point, getting smacked in the face once too many, and decided no more. He dons his self-designed suit and takes action. How cool for a geeky kid?

Plus, bad comic book adapted films ("Ghost Rider") far outweigh the good ("Spider-Man 2"), and I knew in my heart this would be bad. I just didn't see Iron Man and his metal suit gelling as a real visual object. How could they produce on film a metal suit, the fit of Stark's head in the mask, the crunch of heavy metallic boots on the ground? If Iron Man didn't look real, the whole thing would fail. But the news I kept hearing was uplifting: Robert Downey Jr. as Stark; Terrance Howard as Jim Rhodes; Jeff Bridges, one of the most under-rated actors in cinema, as Obadiah Stane. All perfect. I honestly hadn't seen many of Jon Favreau's films, so that left a big question mark in my book.

Well, my fears were put to rest upon the film's release. "Iron Man" is just too friggin' cool. It soars. I adore it. In their first film as a studio, Iron Man publisher Marvel Comics exactly nails this great character (which provides the only negative, I knew exactly how the film would end before it began). The story: While visiting a war-torn county, military industrialist and spoiled playboy Stark is taken by enemy combatants and held for ransom. Stark, realizing he's doomed, builds a suit of weaponized armor and escapes. Once home, he turns a new leaf and becomes Iron Man, reigning in his sprawling war-profiting company whilst blasting away bad guys. (The major transition: The comic book has Vietnam as the instigating country; here it is Afghanistan.)

A simple story, yes, but that's part of the joy. The comic book and this film isn't loaded down with clumsy plot mechanics like the awful "Spider-Man 3," it's character-driven from start to finish. I can't say enough about Downey as Stark -- he nails the gravitas of this character, his good, his bad and his ugly. When Stark is the cold-fish lackey of capitalism, Downey plays him as a self-worshipping heel. When that wake-up call comes and a friend lays dying, Stark's world and Downey's eyes -- and performance -- come into focus. Every Iron Man fan knows that Stark has long carried an addiction to alcohol, and Downey's sullied past brings that baggage to screen without it being mentioned. A perfect detail. Even without the comic book history in my brain, the casting of Jeff Bridges as Stane, Stark's mentor and substitute father, points to villainous deeds. But Bridges takes this admittedly one-note role to the hilt. Howard delivers a low-key performance, much needed against out-sized characters as Stark and Stane.

The look of Iron Man's various incarnations, from the first welded together impromptu rescue suit to the final gleaming, red and iron god, are perfect. The look, play and reflections of light on metal, the sound of crunching ground under boot and the presence of the suit as a real mass object taking up space is flawless. (Versus, say anything in the disappointing "Indiana Jones" 4.) Four times I've seen this film, and I still can't tell where CGI and model effects begin and end. The engineering mechanics of the suit work beautifully, watching on film you understand how each part fits and interconnects and moves. I also love the mistakes Stark is allowed to make as he finds himself and learns who Iron Man can be as he builds, rebuilds and tinkers with his new self.

Favreau set out to bring a super hero to screen that would have been impossible 10 years ago, and hits a home run. The film, for me, essentially is America finding the right course, waking up to its full potential and becoming (once again) a hero. This is a brilliant starter film for a franchise I greatly look forward to. A