A role that finally brought commercial viability to Robert Downey Jr. and the most inspired comic book casting since Tim Burton cast Michael Keaton as Batman, Downey Jr. completely dominated as 'Iron Man' and I have no doubt the runaway success of the picture this last summer was mostly due to his spot-on performance.
Of course, Paramount first chose wisely in hiring once indie-king Jon Favreau ('Swingers') to direct - an iffy proposition at the time considering he just came off the costly bomb 'Zathura' - who championed Robert Downey Jr. for the role and then smartly allowed him to just do his thang.
The rare action film made by the casting and the even rarer action film where the comic and human (and indeed robot) interplay is more the focus and fun.
Which is why 'Iron Man' is much more successful as an origin story than most adaptations because we're not sitting there tapping our foot waiting for the hero to emerge and destroy stuff.
Everyone seemed more than content to just watch Downey Jr. as billionaire playboy industrialist Tony Stark exchange witty banter with his faithful assistant Pepper Potts (a surprisingly well-cast Gwyneth Paltrow) and even his overzealous robot helpers who are a bit too extinguisher-happy.
More topical and humanistic than your usual comic book story, 'Iron Man' gets an update from Stan Lee's 1963 Cold War-theme to the here-and-now where Tony Stark now has to fight for his life and escape from the caves of Afghanistan.
In addition to being a billionaire playboy whose private jet employs flight attendants who double as strippers in the air, Stark also has a daunting intellect; a weapons designer genius who inherited the Stark Industries company from his father and didn't quite understand the impact of his creations until he gets a first-hand look.
Taken prisoner; a crude, magnetized contraption built by a fellow prisoner is the only thing keeping shrapnel from an explosion entering Stark's heart so he's then forced to fine-tune an impossibly powerful energy source that's only been played with as a publicity gimmick for his company in the past.
When terrorists demand he build his new flagship weapon, the 'Jericho' a thunderous mass-destruction missile system, this new energy source allows him to secretly design something else...
His design assures his escape but a key casualty really brings the collateral damage home so when he returns back to L.A., his eyes and conscience open, he breaks the news that Stark Industries will cease to manufacture weapons, news that causes business partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) to worry a bit.
Feeling somewhat aimless and quietly taking in the travesty of world news, a lot of it the direct result of his genius, Stark decides to create a completely new design for his mechanized armor 'Iron Man' alter ego. These research & development sequences are some of the best in the film with Downey Jr. playing expertly off both his non-human friends including electronic 'butler' Jarvis (Paul Bettany) who is his guiding voice in and out of the suit and Pepper Potts, whom his working relationship is but a mere pretense to some serious sexual tension.
After the great second-act capper of 'Iron Man' returning to the middle-east to right a few wrongs, the film decidedly becomes a bit more aimless. The special-effects climax certainly didn't drop the film into mediocrity but it did seem to become what people might have thought the whole film was going to be: spectacular action sequences with no real weight.
Ironically (Iron...ically...ha!), I'm guessing those last fifteen minutes cost as much as all of what preceded it.
Although a borderline one-man show, Paltrow and Bridges both manage to make the most of their roles with Paltrow bringing that same Gal Friday charm that she showed in 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow' and Bridges effectively walking that fine line between friend or foe, the same of which can't unfortunately be said for Bridges' ornately and inherently villainous beard.
Terence Howard is military bud James Rhodes and the role is underwritten but mythology and a wink-wink piece of dialogue presumably lead me to think he'll have a bigger part in the next pic.
That the film is written by two teams of screenwriters, Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby ('Children of Men') and Art Marcum & Matt Holloway (upcoming 'Punisher: War Zone'), is rather mystifying as the bulk of the successful writing seems as if it was written exclusively for Robert Downey, Jr. and his rat-a-tat, irreverent, smart-arse delivery. Maybe that's key to great writing and great performing in that it seems effortless; it only looks like improvisation.
This two-disc special collector's edition comes housed in a cool foil-embossed slipcover with a circular cut revealing the holographic cover art underneath. The film is presented with a flawless anamorphic widescreen transfer and while I've now been spoiled by high-def visuals, you can't get much better than this with DVD. The same can be said for the rocking Dolby Digital 5.1 track.
Disc one special features start off with 25 minutes of 11 deleted/extended scenes including an alternate ending. Interesting stuff but rightly cut. Previews and an annoying-looking trailer for an Iron Man cartoon on Nickelodeon finish off extras on Disc One.
The bulk of the special features are on disc two, the biggest of which is the 7-part documentary running a whopping hour and eighteen minutes. More comprehensive than your usual making-of, this set of docs follows Favreau and crew around during all the phases of production. Some good stuff there. The 50-minute 'The Invincible Iron Man' takes a look at the character in its comic book incarnations with interviews from Stan Lee, Warren Ellis and more.
A half-hour 'Wired: The Visual Effects of Iron Man' featurette proves good stuff for f/x fans and we also get some rehearsal footage and a six-minute screen test with Downey, Jr. We get a short news story from The Onion News Network and an assortment of image galleries finish off the impressive special features.
With 'The Dark Knight' coming out a few months later and rewriting all the rules on how successful a comic book film can be, 'Iron Man' was still a huge success grossing over 300 million (more than 'Indy 4') which was all the more impressive considering the second-tier status of 'Iron Man' as a popular comic book franchise.
A combination of smart direction and casting, flawless special effects and unique topicality led to the beginning of an exciting new franchise and like Depp driving the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' franchise, 'Iron Man' is now unfathomable without Downey, Jr. which gives a dual meaning to his line 'I am Iron Man'.
Iron Man (Ultimate 2-Disc Edition) is now available at Amazon . It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for an Oct. 27th release. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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