Iron Man
(2008)
(SPOILERS) The Marvel-verse clearly owes Jon Favreau a huge
debt. As much as Kevin Feige in his own formative way, he’s the man who set the
tone for their cinematic endeavours. You only have to look at the okay performances
of the other contenders in the then-forthcoming Avengers to recognise Favreau had found a particular alchemy that
the rest, at the time, lacked. It was he who pushed for not-so-long-since
persona non-grata Robert Downey Jr to take the lead (and there hasn’t been a
piece of Marvel casting so assured since, with the possible exception of Tom
Holland), and his looser style that allowed the characters to breathe, ensuring
a solid, workmanlike structure didn’t feel restrictive. Yeah, then he went and
made Iron Man II, but nobody’s
perfect.
Favreau isn’t a
great director, mind. He’s a proficient journeyman – no shame in that
whatsoever – but he has several crucial
tools in his arsenal that put him ahead of many of his peers. Firstly, as an
actor, he’s a dab hand with eliciting strong performances. Added to which, he
has no fear of special effects. Where he isn’t necessarily so hot is with
story, something you can see to a greater or lesser extent with all the
pictures he’s made since Iron Man
made him a hot property (Iron Man II,
Cowboys and Aliens, The Jungle Book). At his worst, his
naturally relaxed style can lead to a sense of bloat and lack of focus (Iron Man II, ironically Chef, which many saw as a response to
being critically hauled over coals with Cowboys).
At his best you get Iron Man, where
the majority of the movie works like gangbusters. It’s only with Marvel’s
Achilles’ heel, the final act, that the picture comes something of a cropper,
and even then, it’s through simply being rote rather than rubbish.
As with Hulk, Iron Man had undergone in the region of
two decades of development hell by the time it finally entered production (including
directors Stuart Gordon and Joss Whedon, and actors Nicolas Cage and Tom
Cruise). The screenplay wasn’t even finished during filming, hence more nerves
for Marvel (a lead they weren’t sold on, dialogue changing by the day). The
process had seen Favreau cherry pick the best of two different scripts, with a
polish by the reliable John August, but it’s difficult to tell if the improv of
the leads (and Downey Jr in particular) was really a result of this or
Favreau’s approach generally (“if Robert
Altman had directed Superman”). Jeff Bridges called it a “$200m student film” (it cost $140m, but
$200m is the common price tag these days), but the freedom of performance and
interaction is only possible because the chosen structure is tried and tested.
Well, to an extent. The most obvious path would be a
complete change on the part of the protagonist, from unscrupulous arms dealer
to saint. Instead, we have a cake-and-eat-it transition from amoral
self-involved narcissist to moral
self-involved narcissist, one with a healthy disrespect for authority to boot;
the seeds are here for the shift in attitude Stark will undergo in Civil War, but right now he’s on the
other side of the fence. Indeed, the picture’s one that juggles an apparently
overt shift that perhaps isn’t as resounding as we’d like it to be. “Peace means having a bigger stick than the
other guy” has only really moved from Tony giving the United States
Corporation a free hand to making himself the arbiter of what’s appropriate;
he’s the one wielding the bigger stick now, and implicitly right in his course
based on what a really bad guy would
do (Bridges’ Obadiah Stane). Most superficially demonstrating this “Do as I say
not do as I do” ethos is that the first thing he does on returning to
“civilisation” is get a McDonalds.
Black Panther co-writer Joe Robert Cole, who helped deliver
possibly the blandest superhero yet committed to celluloid in T’Challa (and
that’s including Captain America) recently offered his thoughts on whether Tony
would be acceptable in the current environment, one with “this very vapid, unintelligent President… Think back to Tony Stark, him
being douche and being okay. I wonder if the response would be ‘Oh, it’s cool
that he’s douchey and disrespectful to women… That’s fine’. I think we’re at a
different place. I think that it’s a better place”. Given the moribund
characterisation in Black Panther,
that less than insightful analysis doesn’t really surprise me; Tony’s entire
arc is that of a flawed individual required to grow as he continues to make
mistakes, and accordingly, his every facet isn’t intended as a positive (he was
an unabashed playboy, one who eventually forsook the lifestyle). Of course Tony Stark’s cool (which doesn’t
mean everything he says or does is cool); he’s an enormously charismatic
character as played by Downey Jr – superhero movies haven’t seen the like
before or since – and alas, T’Challa’s an unfortunate vacuum by comparison. So,
if you’re keen on the elimination of nuance and movies delivering anodyne
product, yeah, we’re in a better place; I’d much rather not have to make a
choice between having interesting characters at the heart of superhero movies and
ones ticking boxes on the progressiveness scale (get a strong writer, and they
can be both), but both Black Panther
and Wonder Woman are deeply average pictures,
however laudable their achievements in changing perceptions of movie-going
demographics.
Favreau’s movie has a habit of telling you one thing while
doing another, much as the ramifications of later Marvel movies don’t quite
seem to follow through (the corruption of SHIELD in The Winter Soldier, for example). It’s evident that arms dealing is
bad, and dealing arms to terrorists is badder, but by moving the Vietnam of the
original comic to Afghanistan, a choice of convenience, the picture is guilty
of complicity in perpetuating the myth of the justified War on Terror. Indeed,
the best, most effective sequences come from Tony fighting this foreign foe,
rather than the corporate overlord who makes hay from conflict. It’s essentially
the kind of lazy villainy that gives us the Libyans in Back to the Future, but unlike the guilt-free catch-all of Nazis in
The First Avenger, it carries with it
strains of racism and stereotyping.
That’s evidently why Professor Yinsen (Shaun Toub) is on
hand to help Tony, serving the get-out of the filmmakers being able to say they
weren’t racist because look. He not only literally saves the hero’s life, but
also serves the function of the “Magic Negro” trope, displaying impossibly spiritual
wisdom (“So you are a man who has
everything… and nothing”) in the face of materialist ignorance. This is
revealed to be a particularly cynical and arbitrary device in Iron Man, as Yinsen in sacrificed in the
most blatant and unnecessary fashion to buy Tony time; in other words, he’s
immediately expendable so Tony can get on with his own, more important story.
The device of repositioning the man who has everything as
the underdog is well-worn and so entirely succeeds, helped in no small way by
Downey’s ready wit. It’s such a thoroughbred that it could be retooled for Dr. Strange eight years later and not
feel repetitive (unlike Stark, Strange does
undergo a dramatic change of personality). Favreau delivers the escape with due
care, ensuring that it’s imperfect by design (the prototype War Monger) and
execution (Stark shoots high before plummeting low).
The best staging comes with his subsequent revenge on his
captors, however, when Yinsen’s village comes under threat (because there needs
to be a personal stake, or they wouldn’t matter?) This sequence stands up with
the best action Marvel has offered, and crucially the effects still look
dynamite (Favreau took care to make the cuts between the CGI and physical suits
seamless). He can blast Afghani terrorists with impunity, of course, but when
he encounters the US Air Force (continuing a superlative extended set piece),
resulting in a mishap to one of the F-22 Raptors, he saves these innocent war
mongers.
Tony’s necessary surgery, inserting an electromagnet that
keeps shrapnel from entering his heart, is about as grisly as a PG-13 will
allow, and Favreau shrewdly opts to dilute subsequent sequences with humour,
such as Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow) helping Stark connect up the MKII arc reactor.
It does, nevertheless, beggar belief that he can survive with a hole in his
chest so massive that Pepper can all-but stick her arm in there and fiddle
around (and while we’re being practical about these things, it’s a wonder he
doesn’t need to be permanently on drugs to prevent infection and rejection).
Tony effectively becomes a cyborg as a result, and the Stan
Winston suit design is just great (a rare case where it’s arguably superior to
the comics). I suspect it’s no coincidence that the two most popular big screen
superheroes (the other being Spidey) have the most effectively transposed
“costumes”. As such, Iron Man is the positive, friendly face of Elon Musk’s
nefarious transhumanism agenda (tellingly, Favreau and Downey met Musk prior to
production), one oddly shaded by his converse sounding the alarm about the AI
threat. Albeit, Tony will ultimately buck the trend of relying ever-increasing
reliance on technology, wrestling back his own body and personal space, at
least to a degree. Iron Man’s sharp relief is a more tangible, immediate threat,
however: the overt weaponisation of Stark’s invention by Stane (“Do you really think that, just because you
have an idea, that it belongs to you?”)
This is where Marvel’s villain problem first announces itself,
right at the outset of the decade-spanning endeavour. There’s nothing to
complain about regarding Bridges’ performance; quite the contrary, he’s the
perfect combination of charm and duplicity (it’s also one of his last roles
prior to becoming fatally infected with mumble mouth). Stane was originally
intended to become the villain in the sequel (we have, ironically, Mark Millar
to thank for nixing that, having voiced his complaints about the Mandarin),
moved up when the Mandarin fell away. The problem is, there’s nothing original
or engaging about Stane’s scheming; he’s out of the Lex Luther school of
corporate mischief making, and by the time he suits up as the Iron Monger he’s
been well and truly reduced to B-grade villainy. That functionality is evident
in the climactic fight too, a better rendered version of the unending finale of
Robocop 2 as two metal men slug it
out and the more diminutive ultimately perseveres.
Other elements have gone through evolution since, but remain
essentially the same, positive or negative. Rhodey is essentially a massively
boring character, whether played by Terence Howard or Don Cheadle (just as his
War Machine suit is an uninspired derivation of the Iron Man costume). As such,
the sequel beckoning “Damn. Next time,
baby” could only possibly titillate the comics faithful.
In contrast, Pepper Potts ought to be a bit of a loss, the
faithful assistant nursing unrequited love for her boss, but Paltrow and Downey
bring such chemistry to bear that she’s one of the highlights of the movie
whenever on screen (all the Gwynie deniers will no doubt strenuously disagree).
Paul Bettany’s J.A.R.V.I.S. is likewise a treat, entirely deadpan and earning
regular laughs accordingly.
One thing I can’t get on board with is SHIELD, though. Even
when used deliberately as a plot mechanism in The Winter Soldier, the fact of them fails to fascinate, so being
expected to appreciate Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) popping up throughout,
unable to reduce his organisation to an acronym, is no kind of treat. Coulson
is ultra-bland (I never understood the appreciation for the character, or why
his death was supposed to mean anything in Avengers
– which, of course, it didn’t, thanks to the Whedon magic wand), and as much as
the group may serve to whet appetites for the eventual Avengers Initiative
(cue: the first in an albatross of post-credits sequences), in and of
themselves they’re dramatically inert.
Also of note: a decent score from Ramin Djawadi, but what
you remember, alas, is the insistent AC/DC and Black Sabbath, neither of whom
really grab me. The Stan Lee cameo represents one of the series’ best gags full
stop (“You look great, Heff”),
meanwhile. Iron Man’s secret is that
it’s a solid movie elevated by its key casting decision and intuitive design
nods. Neither of which is to be underestimated, but the plot is only ever
serviceable and unremarkable. It doesn’t need to be anything more to introduce
the character (busying it up further would likely have led to diminishing
returns): it works, it’s agreeable and it’s all about the star-making Downey Jr
turn; he’s given the role and runs with it, doing what he does best, which is a
ball of relentless, whip-smart energy and creativity. The lesson is, you can also
apply all those elements without a solid backbone plot-wise, and you get Iron Man II. That said, the sheer
confidence with which Stark concedes the traditional secret identity trappings is
the perfect capper to Iron Man, announcing
that, however many beats this makes that are readily recognisable, it’s hero is
fundamentally distinct. And remains so a decade on.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.
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