Iron Man

Tony Stark is a dick.

You don’t hear much about that anymore, but it’s actually quite the American past time. When I saw Batman Begins, I thought I saw the perfect incarnation of page to screen. How wrong I was.

Nerds have a love/hate with the two big other superhero series, Xmen and Spiderman. You can see the movie choices overriding the judgement and character of people some people liked.

Now growing up, I never cared for Iron Man. Never owned an Iron Man comic, never had the action figure. Kind of a non-entity to me. He belonged to an older generation.

But what fun, this Iron Man is.

The movie may just be the one of the best examples of obsession, redemption, and raw talent. There are demons, there is baggage, but there is also a method. I was a comic book nerd who could play basketball better than someone of my height, and my ability to think hone by repetition. The constant thunk thunk of the basketball, the imperfect arc on the way to the hoop. These are all things. There is method. It is slow and frustrating. Eventually, you look a seven foot defender in the eye, post up on him, and drop it in the bucket. The first time you get beaten, and you look up and grin, for all the extra thinking, all the thunk thunk thinking and work that has gone in to it. That’s what Iron Man shows. It’s very easy to dig.

The best thing I can say for this movie is that the big final climactic scene is the worst scene. As others have pointed out, it’s too cheesy, too much like a comic book!

And so we have come that the movie is so good, so suave, and methodical that a Transformer’s-like showdown is made of pure camp. Of last year’s villains. It didn’t need a final showdown, because the things about the comic books that we grew up with were not the big victories over the grand schemes.

Because Magneto would be back, Doctor Octopus would be back, the bad explosive times come back. It’s in the smaller moments, those moments of discovering, enhancing, of overcoming one’s problems that often make very meek men dream of might. And that’s what this movie captures. It’s also a joy. It’s a movie that doesn’t skirt death, it shows that nice isn’t always right. And how cathartic in this time to find a movie where the government isn’t a complete choad. It’s not that it’s always the case in either direction, but it’s a refreshing angle in a world loaded with distrust. It’s also odd to see a movie where terrorists get their shit handed to them. We don’t always win, but we do hand over some shit. It’s important to remember that sometimes. It’s nice to see innovation,

The best movies in the Superhero genre are at their best without the official suit. Think about it.

The moment in Spider Man when he picked up Mary Jane, and her lunch tray, and her milk, as she slips.

Wolverine, in a fighers cage, circling and smoking and stalking. In the next movie, pinning a soldier to a refrigerator, nerves set to kill, the hyperventilated realization that the red haze is descending.

In Superman, having to be a clutz when every part of you is the best of you, and this is all just a show so that he doesn’t wake up to tanks or questions or both.

In Batman Begins, stripped of his suit, the anguish is clear at the beginning. Here is a fighter, relentless and anguished, the soul ragged and abused, cocky and arrogant. Nothing can stop him.

It’s to Iron Man’s credit how little there is of suit, and how much of superhero there is