Iron Man

It seems that the summer movies are off to a good start. Before we get into the movie, let me suggest raising a glass to Jack Kirby, the artist who had a hand in creating the Hulk, Silver Surfer, Iron Man, Thor, the FF4 and many others. Jack Kirby had a style in his work that makes you feel he wasn't just going through the motions. When looking at his work during this period, you feel that Kirby was always striving to do the best that he could. Kirby was doing what he was born to do. This is not a slight against Stan Lee. If you look at Kirby's work when Stan Lee was his editor, it was probably the best work he ever did, and Kirby had a very long career. The Beatles, as a group, best work was always with George Martin, and whenever they strayed away from Martin in the recording studio, the quality tended to go south (see Let It Be). Jack Kirby had it. His Marvel covers from the 1960s still look great and hold up well 30 years later. They are art with a capital A. If you are interested in learning more about Jack Kirby there are several good books available, including the Collected Jack Kirby series, which groups different articles about Jack Kirby together, and has a very reasonable price. Kirby: King of Comics , a new book about Kirby, was just released recently, and is a very handsome looking book, though aimed more at the person that doesn't know a lot about the subject. Kirby: King of Comics is a good starting place for those wanting to know more.

Iron Man was never a first string Marvel character. He was never as interesting as Spiderman, the FF4, or the Hulk. He never had the tragic overtones that Spiderman or the Thing had, and was never as funny either. So deciding to put Robert Downey Jr. in the main role was a smart move. It makes Iron Man cool.

Iron Man, the movie, looks great. Tony Stark /Iron Man, played by Robert Downey Jr., is a whiz at playing with machinery, and the movie does a great job of showing all the little gizmos, machines, and even shows Tony testing out his new Iron Man suit. The movie plays pretty well, though personally I wished there had been more Iron Man and less Tony Stark. A bald-headed Jeff Bridges play Tony Starks partner, Obadiah Stane, who betrays him and later becomes Iron Monger (think a bigger clunkier Iron Man). Jeff Bridges is not on the screen a lot, but he makes good use of his time. You can really feel the evil in Obadiah Stane once he lets loose in the last half of the movie. Robert Downey Jr. is much more believable as the playboy, then the "now I get it" Tony Stark in the second half of the movie. The transformation of Tony Stark from playboy to saint feels half baked at best. The movie is still well served by Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, playing Pepper Pots. They both bring just the right amount of overkill in delivering their lines to make a comic book movie work. This isn't The English Patient after all.

The action sequences look great. I wish there were more of them. A lot of the time is spent telling how Tony Stark becomes Iron Man. The origin is the lion's share of the movie, though this part of the movie plays well. This is always kind of a down side of first time super-hero movies. They tend to spend a lot of time with setting up the rest of the movie with the origin story. I wish they would just jump right in. I already know how the FF4, Superman, and Batman all got started, and I have known it for a long time. I also wish when Iron Monger and Iron Man finally clash the sequences would have been shot clearer or maybe slowed down a bit. In some places, even though we are watching a huge screen, the images just blur by, and we can't really tell what is going on. Iron Man is not the only action movie guilty of this. The movie is worth seeing for just one scene , when Pepper Pots finds Iron Monger, it is really well done, and shows what the movie might have been. It is a short sequence but great. It scares the hell out of you. It is intense. Why can't the rest of the movie be done this well?

When you go see Iron Man be sure and stay all the way through the credits. There is a little short stinger at the very end of the movie.

You can write James Harper at movielover77061@yahoo.com