Iron Man

When "Cartoon" is not synonymous of "Cheesy"


Lately superhero movies got better and better, the Spiderman series revived the genre, the Hulk series were disappointing, Dardevil don't even deserves being mentioned, but The new Batman series and the new Superman movie were great as well as the X-men, the second installation in the Batman series turned out to be industry saving with earnings that threatned the most supreme "Titanic" on the top of all time box office, beating all the star wars and the lord of the rings and the pirates of carribeans in the way.

Iron Man is one of these movies, the story is really simple, Tony Starks was a genius boy, son of a multimillionaire scientist who was a science legend himself, now he is the CEO of his father's company all the parties, girls and the ferraris a super playboy needs, and with achievments that would take a hundred lifetimes for any other, the only problem is that his company makes weapons, some of them he personaly invented.

A weapon's showcase goes wrong and Tony Starks is a prisoner and he has to face the fact that his weapons are not only in the hands of people who pretend to use them to protect America but in the hands of crazy extremists, who threaten him to build them the ultimate weapon, and instead Tony becomes the Iron Man, and has to make difficult choices about his allies, his life's work, and about the way he was raised to think.

The original story of Iron Man is as dark as the one of batman, his parents died both in a car accident, he has alchoholism problems, and he is somehow disgusted about his playboy life, but this movie choses to eclipse this part in the favor of a more cartoon like approach, you don't really see him very depressed save for one scene (and let's face it, we have batman to be depressed and gloomy), his worldview is incredibly simple for somebody that smart and that powerful, but he is always convinced he is doing the right thing, and the performance of Robert Downey Jr, is really good in the sense of that he is exactly the best choice for a guy who hit botom several times, and came back to top once again.

Jeff Bridges is almost a miscast, because he is a victim of his superperformance in "the big lebowsky", Gwyneth Paltrow is really surprising in the role of Starks personal assistant, and then again we shall remember that this is the first movie of a trilogy, so comparing it to "the dark knight" would be unfair, because it has to carry the weight of character introduction, and it is just a good example that even the cartoon approach can be successful if handled with creativity, and frankly we don't need Iron man to be as gloomy as batman, one Gotham City is enough !