Iron Man (2008)

Iron Man. Directed by Jon Favreau. Written by: Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby. Release Date: May 2, 2008. Country of Production: United States of America. Key Cast: Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark/Iron Man), Terrence Howard (Col. James Rhodes), Jeff Bridges (Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger), Gwyneth Paltrow (Pepper Potts), Shaun Toub (Yinsen).

Tony Stark is a successful inventor and head of a weapons manufacturing company. While exhibiting a new missile in the Middle East, Tony is kidnapped by a group of terrorists who want Tony to make them his new missile. Instead, Tony, makes himself an iron suit to escape the terrorist camp, and while doing so he sees that the terrorists had been using his weapons. When he returns to the US, Tony pledges to dismantle his company. He then reconstructs his iron suit and begins to makes trips to the Middle East to fight the terrorists. There he finds that the terrorist’s weapons were obtained directly from his business partner, Obadiah Stane. Tony decides to destroy him, but Obadiah has built his own model of the Iron Man suit. Iron Man wins the iron-person fight, and the film ends when Tony Stark reveals to the public that he is the hero.

The main themes of the film include those of vigilantism, warmongering, personal discovery/rebirth (Tony), hubris/greed/sin (Tony, and then Obadiah), redemption (Tony), sacrifice/sacrificial death (Yinsen), and terrorism—war and weaponry. There is also the theme of man versus his former self, which is evident during the final battle. Obadiah Stane represents Tony Stark’s past life of warmongering.

The film, Iron Man, was originally based on the hero appearing in the Tales of Suspense. Iron Man then moved to Iron Man and the Sub-Mariner, and finally to The Invincible Iron Man. The story was originally set in Vietnam, where Iron Man fought communist agents. Stan Lee, who co-wrote the comic with Larry Lieber, has said that the comic was meant to explore the role of scientists and businessmen in the Cold War. The setting of the comic was later changed to the Gulf War, and after that to Afghanistan.

The film was set in the Middle East, and in the first third of the movie the enemy is perceived to be these terrorists. The terrorists threaten torture, kill a sympathetic character (Yinsen), and bomb American soldiers. When the terrorists are on screen sinister, bass-heavy music plays. As with 300, there are scenes of the terrorist speaking which have no translation, making these people seem more foreign and threatening.

When Iron Man sets out to defeat the terrorists (many of which are the surviving members of the same band from earlier in the movie) who are raiding a small village, there are several shots of innocent Middle Eastern people being attacked. This footage serves as a way for the audience to separate the terrorists from their country (a very important political message in such films where a person or group of people represents their entire country). The film shows a family being ravaged by these terrorists—a father is about to be killed in front of his wife and children. This scene is a way for the audience to connect on an intimate level with the victims.

The true antagonist of the film turns out to be Obadiah Stane, who is not a bearded terrorist, but a bearded American! The audience is brought through the process of having to reevaluate our former assumptions and prejudices. Evil does not just exist in foreign countries—even though many hero and action movies get their villains from other continents. When the villains in a movie are primarily from other countries they nearly always correspond with current country prejudices and conflicts, which makes the threat of the “evil” more relatable. Yet this choice also serves to reiterate such prejudices. Although the Iron Man story has been adapted to correspond with the conflicts of the United States (even within its lifespan as a comic book), the story also addresses the evils in our own country. By making the villains of the story based on terrorists of familiar national distrust and big businessmen whom we are told to trust, the viewers are encouraged to question the powers that be, no matter how many times they have appeared on magazine covers.

Another political message of this film is that of vigilantism being the solution. The military powers in this film are shown only to be in the way of the hero as he is trying to fight. In the final battle scene Col. James Rhodes only role is to make sure that the military does not interfere. Peaceful resistance is also tossed aside—even when Tony pledges to do no more harm, he builds his own “bigger stick” weapon. Robert Downey Jr. is quoted as saying that Iron Man is “American.” What he should have said is that Iron Man is America—the vigilante in its own comic book...that was one of the film's primary messages, was it not?

The formal elements in Iron Man tended to follow the conventions of most hero/comic book/action films, with very quick shots and camera work primarily focused on highlighting the action scenes. The special effects in Iron Man, though, were different from similar films in the way that Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) was not used heavily. Humans in the film, unless aided by robotics, do not perform any spectacular physical feats. Because Iron Man is not a superhero (he is a vigilante) even his movements in the suit should stay within human limitations. With the special effects remaining confined to these limitations, the movie is enhanced, and the audience is allowed to view without constantly questioning the physics in world of the film.

The script in the film also has a few surprises, namely at the end. When Tony Stark is discussing his new public image with Pepper Potts, he discusses the “hero role” and the “hero’s girlfriend role.” This is interesting because this denotes that in the world of the film there exists at least the mythology of heroes. Most hero movies (Batman Begins, Spiderman) do not make mention of other heroes while discussing their roles in society—instead they have consistent struggles with the isolation. Perhaps the screenwriters (Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby) added this dialogue in because Iron Man (in the comic books) was part of a team of heroes.

As a society, we need these vigilante heroes. We need Jack Bauer and Tony Stark—those who follow their own rules, those who have a greater moral compass than “the system” in which we function.

I found the movie to be a very interesting break in convention with the hero/comic book movies made over the past few years. There are psychological elements of the character Tony which are fascinating. Tony is part robot (his automated heart) when he returns from his kidnapping, meaning that he is not a “whole” man. While his former self was a man’s man—powerful, rich, attractive, fit, virile—he now has a physical disability. Although it is not focused on in the film, it was a fascinating character choice for Stan Lee. While all heroes have some sort of Achilles Heel Iron Man’s weakness is always a part of him.

All in all, decent film.

--Sally