The massive success of The Dark Knight during the latter half of this past summer caused some earlier releases to be quickly forgotten. Though it is possible that no other film in theaters equaled the brilliance of The Dark Knight, several were still very good, and one of those, Iron Man, has just made its way into a two-disc Blu-ray release.
The film, directed by Jon Favreau, follows the exploits of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), the super-genius head of Stark Industries and a multi-millionaire playboy. Stark's company, founded by his father, has a number of areas, but none so important, or money-making, as its weapons division. Stark Industries makes the latest and greatest things in military technology, including their recently developed Jericho missile.
Following a demonstration of the Jericho in Afghanistan, Stark himself is taken hostage after an attack in which he is gravely injured. Though another captive manages to save Stark's life, the fix requires an electromagnet in Stark's chest that stops the shrapnel inside him from penetrating his heart. Even though he is lugging around a car battery to power the electromagnet, his captors force him to build a Jericho missile—using Stark Industries weapons they have procured—for themselves.
After the maverick industrialist double-crosses them, building himself a better device to keep the shrapnel out of his heart that also functions as a fantastic battery and a metal suit of armor with some weaponry and the ability to fly, things really get going. Stark escapes and returns to the States a changed man. No longer does he want to build weapons of war that can fall into the wrong hands; instead, he wants to build a new version of his destroyed metal suit and save the world.
Sure, it's all over the top and moderately foolish, but whatever else Iron Man may be, it is first and foremost a comic book movie. If it weren't, Tony Stark's logic in building the ultimate weapon in order to help save the world from weapons is laughable. Here it can simply be dismissed with the brush of a hand and the assumption that Tony will never, ever let his new suit fall into the wrong hands. Though, even that premise proves faulty when, in the climax of the movie, Tony has to face a different, upgraded version of his old suit.
In the end, what keeps the whole movie together is not its own logic or lack thereof, but the performances of the cast, which includes not only Robert Downey Jr., but Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, and Gwyneth Paltrow as well. Downey's performance is what the movie is built on, and his ability to portray the hard-working, hard-living, idealistic Stark in a manner that conveys not just the seriousness of the work but the humor of the film is amazing. One can easily imagine that without Downey in the lead role this otherwise wonderful film would have fizzled.
Howard is Colonel James Rhodes, Stark's military liaison, sometimes friend, and minder. It falls to Rhodes to try to keep Stark in line and where he's supposed to be when he's supposed to be there. Howard manages to walk the fine line between Rhodes being completely exasperated and angry with Stark and still not wanting to give up on the man as either a friend or colleague.
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