Sorry ladies and gentlemen, but after viewing it, we really don’t see what all the fuss is about with this “Iron Mensch” movie. It’s not a particularly bad film; it’s merely the latest cinematic example of garden-variety pop heroism and wish-fulfillment. Maybe it’s because we’ve seen a million comic book superhero origin movies by now and are fed up with that “going through the motions” feeling we get from them. Maybe we’re not convinced that John Favreau, director of cinematic tour de forces such as “Elf” and “Zathura” is capable of making a decent movie. Or maybe it’s because we don’t like sitting in a movie theater next to 13 year olds greedily gobbling down popcorn as they watch a parable of American military might. Yeah, it’s probably that last one, because when you get right down to it, the whole movie is essentially one big “Why We Fight” propaganda ad. Rickey’s big issue with “Iron Man” is its cavalier attitude that brown people in the Middle East are dying, godamnit, and only a billionaire playboy wearing a red and gold metal suit can save ‘em.
For those not in the know, the story to “Iron Man” is more or less a dumbed down version of the Greek Daedalus myth. The screenplay, written without a trace of irony, breaks down thusly:
* Bajillionaire military-arms developer Tony Stark (Robert Downey Junior) is abducted by nefarious cave dwelling terrorists during a tour of Afghanistan.
* He gets a car battery wired to his chest to keep him alive.
* He engineers his escape from a POW camp, declares that he's had an epiphany and that this shit with the quadriplegic Afghani kids has got to stop.
* He builds a snazzy a metal suit to better assuage his bleeding conscience. A hero is forged.
* Bombastic CGI heroics ensue.
* Hero defeats an evil bald Jeff Lebowski (don't ask) hero saves world, room is left open for a sequel.
Don’t get us wrong, it’s perfectly passable summer popcorn fare, but the main character’s socio-political moral awakening rubbed Rickey the wrong way. It’s too facile, and it smacks of typical Hollywood liberal guilt. At this point, aren’t we past just feeling guilty about the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into over in the Middle East? Where’s the interminable rage that is so sorely needed in our culture? Where’s the outcry? The best Hollywood can muster is some half-assed insipid guilt in between shilling for fast-food franchises and sugar water retailers? And what’s worse, when the movie isn’t busy exhibiting flaccid liberal guilt, it’s hard at work perpetuating tumescent fantasies of American military intervention.
In the movie’s pivotal moment, Robert Downey Jr. watches television footage of an Afghani village being plundered and pillaged and he gets mad, proceeds to hop into his newly built metal suit and unleash an epic beat down on those ruthless cave dwelling terrorists. And Rickey can tell you that he felt pretty damned uncomfortable when this scene rolled in the theater and the audience started whooping, clapping and applauding. First off, it’s offensive that dying Afghani villagers are used as a plot device for a comic book hero’s awakening. But there’s something deeper at work here as well. The scene tries to comfort the audience by confirming to us, yes, Americans have a conscience and care about global travesties (when in reality, most of us can’t find Afghanistan on a map) and when jabbering brown villagers somewhere in the Middle East start dying, it’s time for some paternalistic intervention on our part, aided by shiny metallic objects of war. Shock and awe, baby. Does this sound woefully familiar to anyone? Fuck NATO, Iron Man’s on the job!
Yes, the movie does make a point of lambasting Tony Stark’s Halliburton styled defense contracting company for selling weapons to terrorists, but it’s a shockingly facile and shallow view of things. Look, it would be terrific if Halliburton was doing something as brazen and devilish as selling arms to terrorists—we could bust ‘em in a second. In reality, life isn’t that simple and the influence of companies such as Halliburton on the current geopolitical climes are a lot more subtle and nefarious than that. Furthermore, any qualms the movie tries to invoke about the dangers of modern warfare technology are completely overridden by it’s reliance on snazzy fighter jets swooping around and bombastic named missiles exploding in massive pyrotechnic displays. But sure, if John Favreau, the staggeringly brilliant actor from “Swingers,” wants to try to toss in an ill-conceived critique of the U.S. Military Industrial Complex, in his movie, then he can go for it. But don’t be fooled: “Dr. Strangelove” this movie is most certainly not.
A lot of folks like to complain about how the recent comic book film adaptations of Hulk, Superman, and Batman are too brooding for their tastes, but you know what? We’ll take those dark & introspective interpretations any day of the week over the glib rah-rah pro-America attitude depicted in Iron Man. At least they attempt to elevate the material a tad and infuse it with a bit of Freudian self doubt and gravitas while “Iron Man,” in comparison, is depressingly anti-intellectual. The political commentary in “Iron Man” is a total mess and the action set pieces aren’t nearly as thrilling as Rickey would’ve liked them to be. For a blockbuster that cost more than $150 million to make, that’s pretty disappointing. If you’re going to spend an amount greater than what will be donated to the relief effort over in Myanmar (now there’s a job for Iron Man!) you better damn well make yourselves an incredible movie. This is not that movie.
Rickey’s verdict: save your $10 for the new Indy flick. Sure, it’ll contain xenophobic depictions of an indigenous dark-skinned civilization, but hey, at least it’ll be intentional.