Iron Man

I went out with one of the students from our church the other day to see Iron Man. I'd heard some great reviews and the buzz surrounding Iron Man was huge. Even with all the hype, Iron Man surpassed my expectations. I was pretty unfamiliar with the story line and had only recently overheard the "origin story" where Tony Stark, über-wealthy arms dealer, is captured by the enemies of America and is able to escape by building himself a robotic suit of armor. Fast-forward to 2008, update the enemies (Viet-cong to Afghani Terrorists) and we have today's Iron Man.

[spoilers ahead] I really enjoyed Robert Downey Jr.'s performance as the self-centered billionaire, Tony Stark. He brought the kind of "rough around the edges" persona needed for this character. It also makes Stark's conversion seem believable. And speaking of conversion, I was really surprised at some of the territory this film covered. There was a healthy dose of critique for the arms industry and Iron Man wasn't afraid to portray the United States for what we are, the largest and most indiscriminate arms dealer in the world. Stark learns this when he finds that his Afghani terrorist captors are using weapons that came from his own company. While it may be public knowledge that the United States armed both al Queda and Iraq... oh, and Iran, we don't often see that in the plot line of a blockbuster summer action flick. So to the writers with the gravitas to pull that one off... bravo.

Stark comes back from his captivity and has an incredible change of heart. As the president of the largest Arms Manufacturer in the world (Stark Industries), he holds a press conference and announces that Stark Industries will no longer be making weapons. The stock takes a 50 point nose dive and people begin to speculate if he is insane. Could you imagine if Lockheed Martin did something similar? Wow. Tony tries to steer the company towards more humanitarian pursuits while he begins to build the REAL version of his robotic suit of armor that got him out of Afghanistan. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a preachy Amnesty International film disguised as a superhero movie. It is still an action packed two-hours of eye candy... with a heart.

Labels: Film, Military, Politics