Iron Man

(Movie Review)

And so I sheepishly admit that, once again, I'm wasting time watching dumb comic book movies.

Every time I review a Marvel movie on this blog (and there have been an awful lot of Marvel movies recently), I always have to say that I was really more of a DC Comics fan in my youth. But I would dabble in the other side from time to time.

My first exposure to Iron Man was, ironically enough, in Japan a few years back. There was a free book exchange going on in the bar I used to frequent up in Gifu. Someone had left the "The Essential Iron Man Volume 1" (A) and I picked it up and read through it. (By the way, these "Essential" book series of Marvel are a fantastic idea.)

The "Essential Iron Man" book reprints the first 34 Iron Man stories all the way back from 1963, starting with the very first issue where Tony Stark is captured by the evil North Vietnamese. He transforms into Iron Man, and goes on to fight the evil Soviets, and the evil Red Chinese (including a revamped version of the Fu-Manchu yellow peril--The Mandarin (W).)

On one hand, these stories are kind of cute as time pieces of cheesy cold war cliches. The evil Russians that Iron Man is fighting are almost exact copies of Boris and Natasha from the Bullwinkle cartoons.
At the same time though, it is a bit disturbing to think of how much of children's entertainment is geared at making sure they start hating the right people from an early age. One need not be an apologist for Kruschev era Soviet Union to be disturbed at how all of the Russians in this series were portrayed in terms of pure evil.

And that was my first and last exposure to Iron Man. I imagine these stories must have softened somewhat as the anti-war movement gained momentum in the later 60s, but I never followed up on it.

(The wikipedia article on Iron Man's early days quotes Stan Lee as saying "I think I gave myself a dare. It was the height of the Cold War. The readers, the young readers, if there was one thing they hated, it was war, it was the military ... So I got a hero who represented that to the hundredth degree. He was a weapons manufacturer, he was providing weapons for the Army, he was rich, he was an industrialist ... I thought it would be fun to take the kind of character that nobody would like, none of our readers would like, and shove him down their throats and make them like him ... And he became very popular."
I wonder if this isn't slightly mis-remembered history. My own reading is that in 1963 the anti-war movement was non-existent, and that it was still a very safe bet to create a super-patriotic anti-communist American hero. But if anyone out there in blog land knows more about history or comic books than I do, feel free to correct me in the comments space.)

Anyway, back when the "Iron Man" movie first came out, I was talking to a friend about how right wing the early Iron Man comic books were. And my friend responded, "Oh yes, but they've taken that and worked it into the movie in a really cool way. Tony Stark starts out as this right wing jerk, just like in the comics, but then he evolves a little bit along the way."

My own remembrances of the comic book (and it has been a few years since I've read it now) is that it wasn't so much Iron Man's character that was right wing, as just the whole tenor of the stories about evil North Vietnamese communists and evil Soviet communists and evil Chinese communists (et cetera). But the movie does build in a bit of a character development as Tony Stark, amoral weapons manufacturer and distributor, learns the error of his ways once he sees that the enemy can also use his weapons against US troops. It's not exactly a deep political critique, but it's a comic book movie after all.

This new Iron Man movie is also updated for the 21st century. So, instead of Tony Stark being taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese, he is taken prisoner by Afghan terrorists, the new current enemy. Although the film makers do make some attempts to keep current political issues at arms length. The terrorist in the movie aren't the Taliban or Al-Qaeda, but simply the usual "generic Arab bad guys".

Politics aside, as with any comic book movie, there are a number of details that seem perfectly believable in the world of comic books that strain my credulity a bit in a live action film. What is this device that keeps the shrapnel from entering Tony Stark's heart? And really, how does he design this huge armor suit right under the nose of his captors?

That is of course more or less the story line this movie inherited from the original comic. And I think this movie did as good a job with the Iron Man story as could have been expected.

Much of the movie is saved just by Robert Downey Jr., who is as charismatic and fun actor as you could hope for in this role.
I was worried he would get lost beneath the Iron mask, but the film makers did a good job of avoiding that.

The cameo appearance of Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury and the Shield subplot was a nice bone to comic book fans.

The main villain of this movie is a about what you would expect from a comic book movie. He is given only the flimsiest of motivations, and for the most part is pure evil just for the sake of being evil. (And by the way, I don't know if it was supposed to be a surprise that he was the bad guy, but I suspect everyone could see this coming from a mile away.)

If you don't mind turning your brain off for portions of the film, it can be pretty fun to watch.

Link of the Day
Interview with Professor Noam Chomsky

This Calvin and Hobbes Cartoon has been making the rounds. My brother e-mailed me a copy a few weeks back. Funny stuff

And Via This Modern World:
War supporter and professional radio irritant Mancow has waterboarded himself to prove it’s not torture — and immediately bailed, desperately, admitting that it’s torture.

Iron Man: Movie Review (Scripted)