NEW RELEASES -
May 9, 2008 
IRON MAN
Arms or the Man
Reviewed by John P. McCarthy
The summer movie season launches with a
sophisticated superhero movie that doesn't
pander to the sensibility usually associated
with the genre. The downside: "Iron Man"
doesn't exhilarate or take hold of the
imagination. More emphasis is placed on
character than action, a probable -- though
not inevitable or uniformly positive --
result of casting Robert Downey, Jr. as
playboy industrialist Tony Stark.
Personality and effects-driven wows aren't
mutually exclusive of course. Yet by tipping
toward the former, this rendering of the
Marvel Comic introduced in 1963 remains a
tad dry. The dumb teenager in me was
grateful he wasn't being talked down to, but
he wasn't blown away either.
Possessing Dick Cheney's political outlook,
Hugh Hefner's lifestyle and knack for
self-promotion, Bill Gates' ruthless
entrepreneurial spirit, and the scientific
and engineering prowess of an MIT professor,
arms merchant Stark is considered by his
detractors to be the biggest mass murderer
in U.S. history. A suavely avaricious,
hard-partying bachelor billionaire --
orphaned like his fellows Peter Parker and
Bruce Wayne -- he invents and then supplies
the world with weapons.
In the opening scene, we see the
Scotch-on-the-rocks he's holding before we
glimpse Stark riding in a US military Humvee
in Afghanistan. He's there to unveil Stark
Industry's latest creation, the Jericho
missile; and as he's teasing the admiring
soldiers escorting him, we know the light,
jocular atmosphere will soon be interrupted.
What we don't realize is that it will never
be dispelled entirely.
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