Iron Man shows his mettle

The summer movie season is best started with a bang. Iron Man comes with a symphony of bangs shooting from its palms. Its conductor: a heavy metal titan encased in, yep, you guessed it — iron. “Well, technically it’s gold-infused titanium, but Iron Man is nice,” the hero says reading his own headlines.

The metal man is played by Downey, an actor who can do no wrong on the screen and do lots wrong in his personal life, which he seems to have ironed out in recent years. His own story parallels that of Iron Man alter ego Tony Stark, an alcoholic who digs himself into a hole with the sharp end of his skewed principles. On that front, casting Downey was an interesting move. Look past that, though. The real reason he was cast: He’s a riot. And shouldn’t all billionaire arms dealers have a sense of humor? Downey’s Stark does. At one point, he holds a press conference while munching a cheeseburger. He tells the press to take a knee, skirt-wearers and all, so he can wax poetic about his life and future while he chomps all-beef patties.

Stark finds himself in Afghanistan selling offensive weapons to the Department of Defense. After a demonstration in which one of his rockets obliterates an entire mountain range — but not Osama bin Laden — Stark’s Humvee escort is ambushed and he’s captured by militant rebels. The terrorists lock him in a cave and force him to build the weapon he tested before his capture. Stark, now hooked up to a car battery because of a heart injury he received in the ambush, agrees to build, but not the peak-flattening missile.

Instead, he fabricates an armored suit that will facilitate a prison break from the cave. On his way out, while crushing skulls with welded fists and flamethrowers blazing, Stark finds something he never expected to find — his conscience. There, in the terrorist camp, are stacks of Stark Industries weapons; all of them are pegged for use on innocent Afghan villagers. He also finds a purpose: to forfeit his money-motivated arms race to begin to pursuing legitimate science. Stateside, the first item on his agenda is a new Iron Man suit, this one sleek and powerful, capable of flight, the ultimate conversation piece for cocktail parties.

Director Jon Favreau, whose only substantial hit before this was the family holiday flick Elf, films his action as if he’s done it a dozen times before. He gives his Iron Man speed and strength in a tangible way that can be felt on the screen — when he flies it feels fast, when he punches it makes your muscles twitch … nothing feels sluggish or weak. The movie actually zings. Notice, through all that zinging, as Iron Man goes supersonic how the condensation cone, or vapor cone, forms around his ore-clad body. That's a little touch, but it really sweetens the scene.

Favreau — who I'll always remember as the guy from PCU who mishears "Show me where the campus is" as "Blow me where the Pampers is" — also gives Iron Man the weapons he had in the comics. Sonic mortars, forearm-fired rockets, repulsor rays, chest cannons … this toaster oven is packin'. Last summer Transformers, featuring supposedly advanced beings, were fighting in primitive hand-to-hand combat; this summer Iron Man, with a real man inside, blasts a hole into the next theater.

The fighting is distributed over about three sequences — too few for a movie this long at nearly two hours — on several continents and at a variety of altitudes, from sea level to the upper stratosphere. A sequence of Iron Man fleeing two military jet fighters stands out, as does the final beat-down of an Iron Man-like baddie, whose massive frame and superior firepower let the metal-clad Stark show off his agility in that candy-colored suit. The audience I saw the movie with hooted and howled most during the first big fight sequence, with Iron Man striking hero poses as he saves an Afghan village.

Surrounding Downey is a wonderful group of Academy Award-winning (or nominated) actors: Terrence Howard is a military researcher who looks the other way when man-shaped blips start popping up on radar screens, Jeff Bridges is Stark Industries’ renegade (and very bald) warmonger, and Gwyneth Paltrow is Stark’s lovely assistant, Pepper Potts, who is destined to be a love interest, if not in this movie then the sequel. Paltrow, who I adore to no end, is wonderful in these kinds of pictures because she acts as if the action and special effects are below her, as if her status in life prevents her and action to even take exist within the same dimension. That attitude worked well in the super-underrated Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and it works here too. And I can't forget Stan Lee, God to all comic book readers. He has his regular cameo appearance, this one, which is a nod to Hugh Hefner, is better than all before it.

Let me return to Downey for a minute. Credit him for giving Iron Man its legs; he makes the movie work. I just can't imagine anyone else doing it justice — surely not the current Hulk, Edward Norton, or current Batman, Christian Bale. People may say Downey plays it so well because, like Stark, he's had his own addiction problems. Maybe, but we also tend to forget that Downey has always been a terrific actor. Now, though, because of his prison escapades, he's a more of a cult figure. Maybe he likes that, maybe he doesn't. I think of him first and last as an actor. And this actor just knocks Iron Man out of the park.

Iron Man is destined to be one of the biggest movies this summer. And rightfully so. It earns it. It’s filled with high-flying acrobatics, robotic geekery, visual invention and a deep sense of reverence for the material from which it came. Comic fans will drool all over it, Downey fans will adore it and everyone else will cheerfully walk away with a smile. It’s no Spider-Man 2, which had double the action, but Iron Man is of a similar caliber. (Although I would argue, taking a cue from The Onion, that Iron Man the movie is not as good as Iron Man the movie trailer, which used that famous Black Sabbath song to perfection.)

Now all it has to do is compete with some serious contenders: The Incredible Hulk, The Dark Knight and Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Let another year of comics at the movies begin.