Heavy Metal

By Rob Gonsalves

Iron Man. Starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jeff Bridges. Directed by Jon Favreau. Running time: 122 minutes. MPAA rating: PG-13.

The summer-movie season kicks into high gear with Iron Man, the latest expensive blockbuster based on a comic-book superhero. The fan press has given it a warm embrace and tongue kisses, and they're not the only ones; as I type this, Iron Man enjoys a 94 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes and has been voted #159 in the Top 250 movies by users of the Internet Movie Database. It's supposed to be fun, and it is, in spots. But for all its fizz and pizzazz, it left me in a terrible mood. The film glorifies the wit and lifestyle of an unrepentant war profiteer -- Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), a brilliant inventor of "smart" missiles -- then attends dutifully to his moral re-awakening, yet still says that superior firepower gets the dirty job done.

Downey has gotten his share of the praise, and he deserves it. His Stark is the tech wonk as rock star, swanning around important functions with scotch in hand and women on his radar. (They can't resist him.) Downey has fast, supple interplay with formidable actors like Terrence Howard (as Jim Rhodes, an Air Force lieutenant colonel who follows Stark around like a puppy) and Jeff Bridges (as Stark's duplicitous business partner Obadiah Stane -- subtle name). But once Stark and Stane lock themselves into their respective combat armor, so do Downey and Bridges. These two protean actors become Iron Man and Iron Monger, bashing each other through buses, and poor Bridges has to deliver lines like "Nothing's going to get in my way! Least of all you!"

Iron Man works best when it snarks at Stark and his technology fetish -- the sequence dealing with Stark's first shaky attempts at flight with his hand and foot repulsors, while an oversolicitous robot stands by waiting to douse him with a fire extinguisher, is reliably crowd-pleasing. But this hero's origin has its roots in grim current events (much like the initial Iron Man outing in 1963, wherein Stark's armor was forged in Vietnam). At the start, Stark is in Afghanistan, blithely showing off his new Jericho missile to the assembled American military. He gets captured by the usual gang of swarthy mountain-dwelling guerrillas, and he gets videotaped in a scene carrying unwelcome reminders of Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg. With the help of a sympathetic co-captive, Stark builds a rudimentary Iron Man suit and blasts and burns his way free.

Upon his return, a changed Stark exclaims "I saw Americans die." He doesn't say anything about the men who died at his hands -- being forced to use his own destructive technology, being forced to become a killer and to see the dead close-up, is not something the movie has time to explore. Iron Man is as thoughtless as it is weightless. Director Jon Favreau and his four credited writers are too wowed by the high-tech bang to question the morality of making and selling weapons -- the problem is that they wind up in the wrong hands because of corrupt businessmen, and if you drop those businessmen through a roof from several thousand feet up, that problem's solved. All of this is inherent in the original Cold War-era material, of course, but why drag it into 2008? It's a very strange time politically to insist on the heroism of full metal American righteousness.

Gwyneth Paltrow hasn't been around much lately, and she still isn't around much here, playing Stark's smitten assistant Pepper Potts without the sense to take off her heels when running from peril. She and Downey use their quiet pockets of the film together to re-enact James Stewart and Barbara Bel Geddes in Vertigo -- the devoted woman suppressing her love for the obsessive man. I enjoyed their rapport while knowing, depressed, that their characters would eventually be reduced to Damsel in Distress and Knight in Shining (Lethal) Armor. These superhero movies play better for me when they don't knock fine actors down to their level. In the months to come we'll witness Christian Bale disappearing into his cowl again, Heath Ledger cackling and blowing people away, and Edward Norton grimacing as he steps aside for CGI. That's about what happens to good actors in all these movies. Robert Downey Jr. smirks and winks, his helmet clangs down, and it could be anybody under there.

* FLAGSHIP CINEMA 12 *
500 Kings Highway, New Bedford, MA.
Movie Hotline: 508-985-3000

Friday, May 9 through Thursday, May 15:
Speed Racer (PG) - 12:45, 1:30, 3:45, 4:30, 6:45, 7:45, 9:30
What Happens in Vegas (PG13) - 1:15, 4:05, 7:15, 9:40
Redbelt (R) - 1:40, 4:10, 7:25, 9:45
Iron Man (PG13) - 1:00, 2:00, 4:00, 5:00, 7:00, 8:00, 9:35
Flawless (PG13) - 1:30, 4:10, 6:50, 9:10
Made of Honor (PG13) - 1:25, 4:25, 7:10, 9:25
Baby Mama (PG13) - 1:20, 4:35, 7:05, 9:20
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (PG) - 1:40, 4:00, 7:00
Prom Night (PG13) - 9:05
Forbidden Kingdom (PG13) - 4:20, 9:15
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (R) - 1:35, 6:55
Nim's Island (PG) - 1:05
88 Minutes (R) - 4:15
Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (R) - 7:35, 9:50
Horton Hears a Who (G) - 1:10, 3:30
21 (PG13) - 6:50, 9:30

* FLAGSHIP CINEMA 8 *
39 Doty Street (Route 58), Wareham, MA.
Movie Hotline: 508-291-4100

Friday, May 9 through Thursday, May 15:
Speed Racer (PG) - 1:05, 3:55, 6:45, 9:30
What Happens in Vegas (PG13) - 1:25, 4:05, 7:10, 9:20
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (R) - 1:35, 4:25, 6:55, 9:15
Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (R) - 1:40, 4:15, 7:20, 9:45
Iron Man (PG13) - 1:00, 4:00, 7:00, 9:40
Made of Honor (PG13) - 1:30, 3:50, 7:15, 9:35
21 (PG13) - 4:20, 9:10
Nim's Island (PG) - 1:45, 7:05
Horton Hears a Who (G) - 1:15, 4:30
Forbidden Kingdom (PG13) - 6:50, 9:25

* REGAL NICKELODEON 5 *
742 Nathan Ellis Highway, North Falmouth, MA.
Movie Line: 1-800-326-3264, theater code: 450

Friday, May 9 through Thursday, May 15:
Then She Found Me (R) - Fri: 3:30, 7:00, 9:10; Sat/Sun: 12:40, 3:30, 7:00, 9:10; Mon-Thu: 3:30, 7:00
The Visitor (PG13) - Fri: 3:20, 6:50, 9:05; Sat/Sun: 12:30, 3:20, 6:50, 9:05; Mon-Thu: 3:20, 6:35
In Bruges (R) - Fri: 6:30; Sat/Sun: 1:00, 6:30; Mon-Thu: 6:30
Smart People (R) - Fri-Sun: 3:55, 8:55; Mon-Thu: 3:55
Counterfeiters (R) - Fri: 6:40; Sat/Sun: 1:05, 6:40; Mon-Thu: 6:40
Under the Same Moon (PG13) - Fri-Sun: 3:40, 9:00; Mon-Thu: 3:40
Redbelt (R) - Fri: 3:50, 7:10, 9:20; Sat/Sun: 12:50, 3:50, 7:10, 9:20; Mon-Thu: 3:50, 6:55

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