Bratty Girl

I’ve always loved comic books, and despite Iron Man not being as spectacularly popular as my favorites Superman, Spider-Man and Batman, and even less well-known than the Hulk, X-Men and the Fantastic Four, this new science fiction fantasy movie adaptation directed by John Favreau is a satisfying visual feast. The main protagonists display solid acting and the film showcases Hollywood’s visual effects superiority. Thanks also to the writers Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby and Art Marcum and Matt Holloway for a good screenplay, which is the basic foundation of any decent film.

The often-troubled yet talented actor Robert Downey, Jr. is quite effective in Iron Man, his wisecracking humor, panache and fearless bravado fitting the character of hedonistic billionaire and weapons manufacturer Tony Stark. Coming across like a modern-day Howard Hughes or the narcissistic Donald Trump, the swaggering and sardonic celebrity tycoon gets kidnapped in Afghanistan by radical Muslim terrorists right after demonstrating to the US military his firm’s newest missile technology called Jericho.

A fellow scientist hostage named Yinsen (played by actor Shaun Toub) manages to save Stark’s life with a crude electromagnetic contraption embedded in his chest and powered by a car battery to stop shrapnel from reaching his heart; the tech genius tycoon eventually replaces it with a high-tech/high-powered pacemaker-like device.

Under the gun to recreate his company’s newest weapons for mass destruction in a cave, the MIT whiz secretly and defiantly builds a hyper-energized iron suit to blast his way out of captivity. This and other, more sophisticated versions of his super-duper iron suits use up so much metal, no wonder the market prices of metals nowadays have shot up to world-record levels! It’s also a thrill to behold the technological capabilities of his iron suit, which allows our super-hero to fly up into the heavens at a faster speed, even than America’s finest fighter jets.

One of the true secret weapons of Iron Man in his struggles and exploits is not made of metal; it’s his flesh-and-blood loyal assistant and budding love interest — Virginia “Pepper” Potts, played well and with good humor by actress Paltrow. She once wowed us with her superb performance in the wonderful 1998 film Shakespeare in Love. Like Natalie Portman and Steven Spielberg, Paltrow is proud of her Jewish roots and cultural heritage. She is a descendant of the famous 17th-century Polish rabbi David HaLevi Segal of Krakow and generations of rabbis in Minsk, Russia.

One of the enjoyable highlights of this movie is the penultimate explosive duel that pits Iron Man against a much larger, bulkier and more menacing iron monstrosity. Both of them ferociously battle and blast away at each other, oblivious to much of surrounding southern California. The enthralling action scenes and special effects here are not senseless fun or gratuitous, but are used effectively to advance the storyline and character development.

One of the lessons of this film is that sometimes in life, our most abominable foes are not those outside our armies, businesses or clans, but possibly some of the most trusted people in our inner circle. Watch out for the remorseless machinations of the villain Obadiah Stane played by actor Jeff Bridges.

Iron Man is one superhero action movie with heart and (some) brains; it is good, satisfying summer entertainment. Like the hero in the unforgettable Batman Begins film of 2005, Downey fully portrays Tony Stark/Iron Man as human, vulnerable and flawed, with multiple vices such as womanizing, boozing and gambling. Often bloodied and bludgeoned, but never bowed, the main protagonist is characterized as gutsy, gritty, honest and endlessly seeking redemption.

Unlike many superheroes who reside in urban jungle New York (or its comic book counterpart, Gotham City), Tony Stark lives the high life in a seaside mountain cliff mansion with underground laboratories in sunny Malibu, California. This tycoon drives Audi luxury cars, flies in private jets with sexy stewardesses, indulges in excessive gambling and liquor, womanizes wantonly, and thinks he is on top of the world as big boss of the publicly-listed Stark Industries. However, a fellow scientist hostage in a cold dark Afghan cave asks about his lack of a family, perhaps alluding to his meaningless meanderings through sybarite pleasures, and later comments poignantly that the tycoon is after all “a man who has everything but nothing.”

Iron Man is also an interesting parable of the struggle for personal redemption. From a nihilistic warmonger playboy, Stark eventually changes and seeks to use his technological genius and vast wealth to right the wrongs of our troubled world. We need not be tycoons like Bill Gates, politicians like Hillary or Obama, celebrities like Angelina Jolie or superheroes like Iron Man to be imbued with social responsibility; our priceless gift of life demands that we do our share to help change our world for the better.

In one action scene in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan just before the death of this fellow hostage Yinsen, the latter’s final words of advice to the swashbuckling playboy billionaire should perhaps also ring true for most of us: “Don’t waste your life.”