(2008) Superhero-action adventure, with plenty of mayhem, explosions, and just the right amount of sly humor (not taking itself too seriously), from director John Favreau, with The Wizard of Oz's Tin Man not only getting a new heart but also a fantastic suit of gold-titanium alloy and high-tech enhancements that allows him to withstand bullets and soar at supersonic speeds. Iron Man - created by Stan Lee, Don Heck, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby - is a composite of "the man of steel" Superman, the Incredible Hulk (metal skin and muscles), and fellow billionaire Bruce Wayne's Batman, dedicated to righting wrongs. The screenplay is also a four-man committee effort headed by Mark Fergus.

Having inherited his father's weapons-manufacturing company, Stark Industries, boy-genius Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr - perfect for the part, relishing his hotdog role) follows in deceased Dad's footsteps (a member of the Manhattan Project) in creating the most lethal, tactical weaponry on the face of the earth. Accompanying his friend and Defense Department contact, USAF Gen James "Rhody" Rhodes (Terrence Howard), to Afghanistan where he demonstrates his devastatingly effective Jericho missile, from an ambushed convoy Tony finds himself inside a cave in the hands of the Ten Ring, a ruthless band of terrorists under warlord Raza (Faran Tahir), with a homemade magnetic device surgically implanted by another prisoner Yinsen (Shaun Taub) in his chest attached to a car battery, keeping him alive by preventing fragmentary shrapnel from migrating to his heart.

The thuggish Abu Bakaar (Sayed Badreya) and his superior Raza demand from Stark a Jericho missile in ten days or else. Given the resources needed (various types of his company's weapons in the hands of the terrorists), instead of building a missile, Tony pieces together an armor shell with flaming-throwing armaments and escapes by propulsion (but lacking a parachute).

Back home in California, having seen that his company's weapons are getting into the wrong hands, Tony publicly renounces further weapons development and sales; the stock price of Stark Industries plunges. Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) with the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistic Division repeatedly requests a debriefing session with Tony.

At his ultra-modern home, hugging a cliff in Malibu, where he's led a life of lust and luxury, Tony the playboy refocuses his attention on vastly improving the crude iron-man design he'd fashioned in Afghanistan, using JARVIS, his AI program, for development and assembly of a Mark 2 and then a Mark 3 suit of armor.

Relying on his ever-efficient female assistant, red-headed Virginia "Pepper" Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), he has her download secret computer files that reveal under-the-table weapons sales by his partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges); her gift to him - "Proof that Tony Stark has a heart" - (rather than discarding the older device as he had instructed, saying he isn't sentimental) of the palladium-ring chest implant (a miniature of Stark Industries' huge Ark Reactor), which he'd constructed in Afghanistan to replace Yinsen's bulky device, provides Tony with a backup when his refashioned device 3.0 gets yanked from him.

Enraged that the company's top scientists not only can't replicate Tony's miniaturization of the Ark Reactor, they tell him such a device impossible, Obadiah reacts by saying that Tony Stark did the impossible inside a cave with crude tools in a matter of days.

Realizing what he must do, following his going back to Afghanistan to take care of the Ten Ring and dog fighting in the air with a couple of the US Air Force's F-22 jets, Tony returns home to find Iron Monger waiting for him and threatening Pepper.

If you wait until the end of the credits, you'll see a brief scene of Tony returning to his home to find another SHIELD agent waiting for him.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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