Zachary FenellIron Man
February 5th 2009 18:17
Iron Man, 2008
If you're getting the impression that I'm a comic book geek, you'd be right. I didn't really get into comics as a passion until I was in my early 20s, though, and that was because I had been exposed to some of the greatest tragedies of our time. Yes, I'm talking about things like the Captain America movie and the supreme cheesiness of television series like the Hulk and Wonder Woman. They were written in the 70s when things like maintaining the integrity of the source material just didn't seem to matter, and don't get me started on the production values...
This is the foundation of my trepidation concerning all types of remakes, even if it's not direct. That is to say, we have Ang Lee's Hulk movie from a few years back, and it was... questionable. This is supposed to be the reboot of the Avengers team from Marvel Comics. Iron Man is also in that category. I admit that I poo-pooed the rumors of the movie having any kind of real potential as "good", right up until I saw the trailer.
Then, I was hooked.
Just in case you have never read the comics, this brave new Iron Man tells the origin story of our title hero, updated and fresh for new audiences. There is still a little line of interest back to the original origin tale, but that's the topic of another film surely. Tony Stark, an impossibly intelligent, rich and good-looking fellow, runs afoul of darker, seedier people who use the weapons that his company produces. In a desperate attempt to both survive and escape, he cobbles together a little something he'd been toying with. Hence begins the hero journey.
It is very easy to fall into the trap of portraying the character behind the mask as a singular personality. That is to say, if you know that Tony Stark in his fifth story arc was this kind of guy, it's easy to just make him this kind of guy from the very beginning. Unfortunately, this is the complaint of many a mature comic reader who expect their graphic tales to be literate. We want our stories to have the same intense and intriguing process of growth and transformation that we expect from a really good novel, except with pretty pictures to add to the tale.
Someone got it. The writers started with a good archetypeal story and went from there. Instead of the flat and wooden characterizations that would have made this impossible or the heart-wrenching sentimental characterizations that would have made this unbearable, we got a real look at a real person facing extraordinary obstacles and not only overcoming them with ingenuity but being truly transformed by the experience.
That's what real hero stories are about. They're not about some guy who's better than you'll ever be saving the day and being inhumanly humble about it. Heroes have human flaws but they also have purpose. They are affected by the events they take part in. The purpose and popularity of the Hero story, in whatever guise, is that we ourselves can be transformed a little, too, by walking that path with them. It doesn't matter if it's a comic book or a movie or a novel or a stage play - this is the goal, and Iron Man does a reasonable job achieving it.
If I were purely prone to assessing on action, it would go all the way to five stars - the action is done remarkably well - but in terms of a truly important movie, time will have to tell.
4.5 Stars
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