Iron Man (***1/2)

Jon Favreau's Iron Man is a substantial step in the evolution of the comic book movie. The truth of that statement is evident to me, at least, when as I wrote the words "comic book movie" I cringed a bit. I don't like categorizing movies by their source material alone. We don't refer to The Silence of the Lambs as a "book movie", or The Shawshank Redemption as a "novella movie", or A Few Good Men as a "play movie", and what the hell kind of category would we put Adaptation into, anyway? Part of me wants to say, a movie is a movie is a movie. But then, comic book movies have a different feel, don't they? They are distinctive. It's been said that comics are the mythology of America. The French have their Arthurian legends, the English (in addition to co-opting the French) have Tolkien, we have Batman and Superman and Spider-man.

And Iron Man. As far as comic book IP goes, it's a bit of a tier 2 property - still an integral piece to the Marvel universe, Iron Man doesn't hold the kind of acclaim one finds in a Spider-Man or Batman.

Or Superman. Where that most influential comic book movie attempted to invoke majesty, the new wave of comic book movies - starting with X-Men, I suppose - has had their sights set firmly on "cool". If you told them they were part of American Mythology, they'd laugh at you. Or give a snark.

In that vein, Iron Man is a good example, probably the best I've seen. The cool is unmistakable, from the first frame, where Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), a genius defense contractor demonstrating his latest weaponry in Afghanistan, exchanges some banter with his escort troops ("Good God," he says when the driver speaks, "I had no idea you were a woman.") In most movies involving characters whose lines must be concentrated into tiny bubbles inside condensed panels, their dialogue comes across much the same way. Here, where Downey Jr. is allowed to ramble and digress (and nobody can do so like Downey Jr. can), we realize that this may be the first truly intelligent superhero movie - or at the very least, the first superhero movie where we would recognize that someone is a genius without having to be told.

Things go bad in Afghanistan, and the plot begins to unfold, involving Stark, who has a crisis of conscience in learning that his weapons may have fallen into the wrong hands; his business partner Obidiah Stone (Jeff Bridges, with a thick beard and shaved head), who worries that Stark's antics and eccentricity may drive their company under; his assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is spectacularly competent, who matches him witticism for witticism, who may be in love with him but who is also concerned that his antics could get him killed; Rhodey (Terrence Howard), a friend in the military; and agents of a mysterious government agency known as the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D.).

The plot unfolds via - and boy, how am I ever going to get through this part - an ambush on Stark in Afganistan, where a warlord named Raza (Faran Tahir) takes him captive with the intent of forcing him to build his latest weaponry for him. Rather than oblige him, Stark, with the help of a friendly co-captive Yinsen (Shaun Toub), builds a device to help him escape: an early version of what will become his Iron Man suit. He escapes, and fearful that his company has sold weapons to the enemy, announces that they are shutting down their weapons manufacturing division, a move of which Obidiah Stone does not approve. Stark upgrades his Iron Man suit, allowing him to fly, evade a pair of F-22's, and take care of the problems in Afghanistan almost as an afterthought. But Stone gets wind of the device, builds his own version, and problems ensue. Oh, and Stark was wounded in the chest, with shrapnel near to his heart, requiring that an electromagnet stays powered in his chest at all times, lest he die.

If that sounds complicated, well, it is, but events unfold with a certain diabolical logic that leaves you grinning. It's Downey's performance that drives the movie, and his flawed, rambling, womanizing, brilliant character, but the supporting cast is essential, particularly Bridges as the business partner who will become the movie's villain, but who seems less "super" than the supervillains in most superhero movies, in that his goal is nothing more than the salvaging of his company, which he believes Stark is undermining. He's ruthless and cunning, but we can empathize with him, to a degree. Paltrow, as Potts, the assistant, is effortless, but game. We believe that she is aware of the tension between them, but mature enough to stay realistic about these things. Howard plays it completely straight, which is the right decision. Leslie Bibb has a nice role as a reporter with almost as much brainpower as sex appeal.

The special effects are noteworthy - we expect our special effects in high budged superhero movies to be good, but "expensive" and "skillful" are not always the same thing, and even as we have guys in big flying iron suits fighting one another, we sense the personalities behind them, and their mass and momentum. We may not believe them, but to what degree we can we accept them.

I would say that we're approaching a point where when we think of a movie like "Iron Man" we think more of the movie and less of the source material. We're not there yet, but it feels like we should be. This is a quality flick on any curve.

Rating: 3.5 out of 4.

Still to be reviewed: Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Mulholland Drive. Shipped: There Will Be Blood, Deadwood S1D1, Deadwood S1D2.