Saw Iron Man at the 2:15AM screening at Cinema City last night, and apparently we weren’t the only ones who picked that show for the chance to see it in the much-hyped digital screening at theatre 7. The digital thing certainly has lovely vibrant color, although theatre 7 has the unfortunate set-up where anyone standing in the back rows casts a shadow on the screen.
Anyway, Iron Man rocks. Although it’s handicapped by the straitjacket of the full structural formula mandated for all Superhero movies, particularly the firsts in a franchise – requiring an origin story, the establishment of a love-interest, and a final battle with a villain who is a dark reflection of the hero – it does all this with a lot of flair and a minimum of melodrama. The slow parts are compensated by the constant presence of Robery Downey Jr, who is such an obvious casting choice for Tony Stark that he seems to inhabit the role instead of actually acting it. Probably best of all, he brings across a strong sense of fun – Tony Stark was described by one blog I read as “Catholic Batman”, and there is the whole life-lesson bit, but it doesn’t weigh down the sheer joy of building and flying in the Iron Man suit. If the Spider-Man movies kept whacking the viewer on the nose with the rolled-up newspaper of Peter Parker’s tragedies and paralyzing angst whenever it seemed we were having too much fun with the thwip-thwiping around the skyline of New-York, Iron Man gives us a protagonist who is unashamedly enjoying himself as much as we are.