IRON MAN

Comic bust if not for the cast

By HARRY VAUGHN

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Much like its flamboyant protagonist, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Iron Man is a bright and energetic flirt of a movie, limited by the constraints you're more likely to see in a Chevrolet advertisement.

If there is anything positive to take away from Jon Favreau's stuffy and visually assaulting direction, it's the performance by Robert Downey Jr.—who finds a remarkable balance between effortless charm and obligatory seriousness. His wonderfully rambling and hyperactive Mr. Stark, who begins the film as a weapons dealer and ends it a bleeding heart superhero, helps balance the in-your-face ugliness of the film's abrasively patriotic screenplay. Alongside the blatant evangelical undertones of Superman Returns, Iron Man is perhaps the most obnoxiously capitalistic, pro-American superhero adaptation to hit the big screen; e.g., when Stark is handed a Burger King Whopper, he responds with, "Now that's what I call an American burger!"

The film's only inspired element comes from its sophisticated cast. Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges play the cartoonishly over-the-top characters of Pepper Potts and Obadiah Stane with a self-aware sense of irony and wit. Both A-list actors dive into their shallowly constructed roles and appear to have a delightful time hamming up every line they can sink their teeth into. Paltrow and Downey Jr. share a very real chemistry on camera, which adds a small but necessary touch of gravity to Iron Man.

Unfortunately, their finely -tuned performances contrast sharply with the inherently ignorant tone that mars much of Iron Man's good intentions. The hot red, man-made machine, which has a chilling and menacing demeanor, eventually shuts out all of Downey Jr.'s warmth as he becomes an invulnerable fighter in the film's absurdly inaccurate depiction of America's war on terror. In one scene, Iron Man sets an entire terrorist camp on fire, torching one person after the next with a fascistic sense of single-minded glee. With that, it suddenly becomes clear that this supposed "superhero" we are rooting for is more accurately a potent representation of post-9.11 American destruction.

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