'Iron Man' (the movie)

is irreverent fun

Directed by Jon Favreau

Rated PG-13

(Three stars)

By Bruce Bulloch

Every superhero movie needs its very own special superpower. In the case of "Iron Man" that would be Robert Downey Jr.

Downey's screen persona has always been a PG version of his rather sordid biography, combining a feral cunning with a compromised sense of moral balance. Like a tipsy fox, Downey's wit and quick reflexes keep him moving forward though never quite in a straight line.

Downey plays Tony Stark, a brilliant and morally untroubled weapons designer who, for some unfathomable reason, is demonstrating his latest missile in the middle of an insurgent infested frontier somewhere in the Middle East. Rumbling along in a Humvee, Tony holds court with the soldiers who are accompanying him. Downey is wonderfully glib and the young soldiers are completely in awe. It's a subtly constructed scene; presenting the soldiers as star-struck kids one moment then military professionals the next as a hail of bullets rips through the Humvee. Unlike most extras in an action film who function mainly as fodder for CG effects, the heroism and loss of these soldiers are keenly felt, setting up the transformation of Tony Stark into the hero of the film.

Wounded, Stark is carried off by insurgents who, in an utter abandonment of better judgment, hand him a stockpile of weapons and demand he build them a replica of his super rocket. Stark emerges from his workshop wearing a homebuilt version of a Transformers outfit, sending smoking jihadists spinning off in every direction like spent embers from a fireworks display (It's a very satisfying video moment).

Back at home Stark decides to mend his ways and sets about building a 2.0 version of his armored suit. The CG animators must have had a lot of fun constructing what is arguably one of the coolest superhero costumes to ever grace the silver screen. Meanwhile director Jon Favreau gets some very funny interaction between Downey and his robotic lab assistants.

Now that Stark has officially transformed himself into Iron Man he sets out to settle a score with the insurgents who have been using Stark Industries weapons to terrorize the local population and kill American soldiers. Meanwhile his partner, Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), sees the Iron Man costume as just another piece of military hardware to be sold to the highest bidder and secretly constructs his own knockoff.

Bridges is an inspired bit of casting. Like Downey, he settles most comfortably into roles that require a touch of moral ambiguity. In fact, back in his "Big Lebowski" days he could have pulled off a pretty convincing Tony Stark. As Obadiah, his dramatically shaved head adds a sinister patina to the role.

Facing jihadists on one hand and the treacherous Obadiah on the other, Stark and his Iron Man outfit have enough rock-em-sock-em action to fill out the remainder of the film. Tony wins some and loses some, always propped up by his reliable personal assistant, the ever-perky Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow).

Paltrow does a respectable job with this thankless role but she isn't given much to work with. "Iron Man" is, after a pretty interesting set up, content to putter through the remaining story with some fairly predictable CG action sequences.

What separates "Iron Man" from being a run-of-the-mill superhero flick is Downey's incorrigible personality. He shakes up the dialogue, adding an extra kick to the one-liners that often pass for character development. In the end, he doesn't create the fascinating character study of Heath Ledger's Joker in "The Dark Knight" or the scruffy anti-hero of Will Smith's "Hancock," but he manages to turn "Iron Man" into an irreverent bit of fun. And in the superhero genre, that's worth something.

Bruce Bulloch may be reached via wseditor@robinsonnews.com