It was a relief, finally, to watch a hero-origin movie whose actors, and the script they danced to, allowed you to forget the film's preposterous plot: a weapons-making billionaire builds a suit of armor and redeems himself through it. But with a solid cast and clever dialogue, and an action scene that relied (thank God) on Robert Downey Jr. fighting partially armored, and fumbling, we have a movie that trumps the origin stories of other hero movies (so far).
Though a Batman fan, I have gotten tired of the overly serious trauma-as-vigilante-catalyst angle. People get bullet-holed in front of their kids, we know that, we see it on YouTube, read about it in the papers. Statistically, at least one of those parentless kids is bound to be both smart and an heir. I'm just not so sure if he'd turn out to be dark as the Bat.
Similarly, I doubt if billionaire scientists will build weapons to suit themselves with, but "Iron Man" takes this premise without taking it too seriously, and that's the pure joy you get from watching Iron Man: you are never truly asked to push your threshold for disbelief. What is so morality-heavy about flying around with super weapons? 40-something Stark did. Stark's desire to redeem himself was really something thrown in for convenience, something you could forgive. Like trauma. He'll get over it. And that's ok, Tony is Tony.
Meanwhile you watch him fly and fumble and finally realize he actually likes his secretary.
(By the way, if you've seen the film, did you notice that there was always dialogue happening even in the midst of so much fighting? That's the beauty of the film. The CG was there for the polish, not as the backbone.)
Cheers.
