Tuesday 2 March 2010

Iron Man [2008]


Iron Man is the first in-house production by Marvel Comics, and what an inspired decision it seems to have been because this might just be one of the most memorable superhero films and comic book adaptations in sometime. The movie is plainly and squarely about Tony Stark, a cocky, cynical, egotistic, arrogant billionaire, who graduates to being Iron Man when he realizes that weapons manufactured by his company might actually be furthering terrorism instead of abetting it. The film has been cast to perfection. Robert Downey Jr., as the flawed genius who gets an eye-opener only when kidnapped in Afghanistan, has done a fabulous job by making Tony Stark/Iron Man absolutely his own. Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges, too, are noteworthy as Stark’s ever-loyal assistant and his dubious right-hand man, respectively. A critic qualified the movie for “it’s meta-narrative of celebrity redemption”; its socio-political subtexts aside, at the end of the day what really makes it such a hip-roaring success is that it is a solid summer-blockbuster and an out-and-out entertainer. The action scenes are spectacular but never over-done, the special effects are quite good, the kind of gadgetry shown would put the James Bond’s and the Batman’s to shame, and the pulsating soundtrack does the film no harm.








Director: Jon Favreau
Genre: Action/Sci-Fi/Superhero Film/Fantasy
Language: English
Country: US

2 comments:

Alex DeLarge said...

Surprisingly, this is a pretty good film. I'm a comic book geek but usually ignore these cinematic adaptations which distill history and various plots into two hours. But this captures the spirit of Tony Stark and only becomes less interesting when the action starts.

I now have some "cred" in the office because I actually reviewed a film that my co-workers liked!

Shubhajit said...

Yeah, i too tend to stay away from movies which have "low-intelligence, high-octane blockbuster" written all over them. Thankfully i didn't (at least not for too long) in this case, because unintelligent Iron Man is certainly not.

Great to see you here fellow comrade-in-arm. Long live the revolution ;)