movie review: Iron Man (2008)

Iron Man (2008) - Without a doubt, one of the most breezy and enjoyable big summer movies in awhile. After last summer, when every big action movie was a three-hour monster with plots as dense as Greek mythology, its terrificly satisfying to get a movie that competently, happily, and enjoyably delivers what it promises (that being a robots, explosions, and Robert Downey Jr.). Downey is pretty much as good as all the reviews have promised-he pretty much makes the movie. As with most of his recent roles (in the excellent Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Zodiac for example), Downey gives the impression that he's the smartest guy in the room, and is well aware of it, but is having so much fun that he might as well include you to. The rest of the cast is pretty good too: Gwyneth Paltrow reminded me why she used to be a crushworthy actress (plus I recently rewatched The Royal Tenenbaums); furthermore, her character is the first superhero-movie girl to not be incredibly annoying, whiny, and selfish-instead, she's the protagonist's intellectual equal, holding her own with some decent banter and a sense of fun. I liked Jeff Bridges in the villain role also (I'm sorry, that's not a spoiler-just look at his sinister beard!). He's good actor, and he doesn't appear in nearly enough stuff, and its nice to have a bad guy who usually acts like a relatively typical, sane human being instead of a twitchy weirdo (no disrespect to Willem Dafoe). Terrence Howard had the most boring role known to man, and didn't make much of an impression, but I suppose he'll pay off in the sequals.
Though the special effects are pretty flawless, the action is admittedly just so-so. The first big action bit, where Tony Stark escapes his terrorist captors (more on that below) in a primitive iron suit is pretty good, but the ensuing action scenes are kind of bland, and awfully short. The big finale fight in particular is kind of damp-the robots just punch each other for a few minutes, then shout at each other, then there's a light show, then it's done. (To be fair though, none of the big superhero movies have managed to have really successful action - the fight scenes in the very good Batman Begins for example look like one dude shook the camera while another dude in a black sleeve waved his arm in front of it).
Ok, then there's the politics. So every review I've seen of this comments, usually negatively about the politics of having Iron Man battle some middle eastern terrorists. Hmpf. I get where they are coming from, kind of, but I'm not sure I buy it. I mean, you could argue that's its jingoism or wish fulfillment or whatever, but I'm not sure the evidence is there to support it. As many of the reviews point out, the original comic book of Iron Man had Tony Stark being kidnapped by the Viet Cong (it came out in the 60's.) It sucks, but then the Viet Cong were the U.S.'s most well known enemies, and today Middle Eastern terrorists are a most well known enemies. It's a story of its time, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing. And yes, having a white hero fighting savage brown people is maybe reductive, but I'm not sure how to get around it here.
Interestingly, the movie actually goes to pretty great lengths to make its terrorists apolitical. Sure, they're middle eastern and hang out in caves, but their bad guy leader (who is as hairless as a Star Trek alien) is constantly yammering about being like Genghis Khan and conquering Asia(?). I know some critics have argued that this sort of cowardice is a fault and a hypocrisy (and again, I understand), but, still, I can't help but feel like they're reading too much into things. Or at the very least, faulting the movie for being a product of its time, which it can't really help.