Und So Weite: Engineering problems with Iron Man
May 1st 2008 00:19
Warning! Posts on Und So Weite discussions about movies previously reviewed and generally contain hefty spoilers!
This week's review of "Iron Man" gathered quite a bit of attention in the Orble community, especially with a simultaneous review from JohnDoe on JDMFilmReviews.
Both JohnDoe and I were left disappointed with the film, though I concede that action/comic book fans would probably enjoy this more than the lukewarm adaptations that have infected theatres last year.
The character, Iron Man, at conception, was meant to be an anti-Communist hero, riding the wave of American "us vs. them" mentality in the early 60s. When the backlash against Vietnam spread throughout the country, Stan Lee sharpened his pencils and redirected Tony Stark to become conflicted and complex... the few comics that I have read, with Iron Man in them, have spun a cheeky tone on the power of weapon manufacturers and the blind optimism of the American military.
The movie incorporated some of these sentiments - Tony Stark's company is overly glossy and his plane is staffed by beautiful stewardesses who dance in their short skirts as he disinterestedly sips a scotch on the rocks.
Unfortunately, the potential for this tone is never carried through. JohnDoe correctly notes that a director like Paul Verhoeven would have nailed it - and, in fact, had already made two films about the folly and desperate blindness of the military: "Robocop" and "Starship Troopers". From JohnDoe's review:
"In fact at about the half way point JD yearned for someone like Paul Verhoeven at the helm to play with the ripened social commentary that is never plucked. It would have been nice to see a little blood in a story with so much carnage, what we get is the A-Team slug shot philosophy. "
Instead of developing this commentary, director Jon Favreau dives into the aesthetics of opulence and gleaming technology. The scenes of Tony Stark in his basement laboratory, where he develops his Iron Man suit, are some of the most ridiculous in the movie.
While any superhero movie requires us to suspend belief, I would argue that science fiction films (and books, for that matter), are at their most powerful when they stay as close to reality as possible. Take, for example, the classic sci-fi novel "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson, or Jean-Luc Godard's sci-fi film, "Alphaville", which, with almost no use of technology, paints a terrifying future.
Stark develops the first prototype of the suit in a cave in Afghanistan, which is total nonsense as it is shown in the film. Without going into too much detail, a project of that complexity would be nearly impossible to build in so little time. If the suit were more like the suit of armour that Ned Kelly famously wore at his last shootout, that would be more reasonable.
Upon his return to America, Stark gets hyper-focused and builds the new Iron Man suit, which is the incarnation that comic book fans are familiar with.
His lab is generously outfitted with several outrageously expensive cars, an artificially intelligent computer with a sense of humour, a fire-extinguishing robot with a sense of humour, and a 'only-in-the-movies!' desktop computer that generates a 3D hologram for Stark to design with.
It's utter lunacy, of course, and the movie could have done without these leaps of faith. Of course, with a blockbuster like this, more is better. Talking computers - good. 3D holograms, good. Gratuitous explosions and random violence - good.
Naturally, the villain of the film finds Stark's first suit. Well, just the fried remains of it. With the help of a band of Afghani terrorist, he puts the suit back together, hiring his 'best engineers' to develop a bigger, better suit.
Once, working for a big company, I was part of a group that wanted to design and build a tiny mechanical object with no moving parts. It took weeks to design, then committees and discussions, then a prototype was built and it, naturally, failed.
All of this is curiously absent from the movie - but with good reason, I imagine. Who wants to watch Tony Stark in a committee?
*these images from IMDB
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Thanks for the quote! It seems we are in agreement on this one in most points. As you know I'm a big fan of comic book films when they are done well, and this one was a good example of a by the numbers blockbuster. Good family entertainment, shame it could have been much more though...there could have been a Raiders of The Lost Ark quality to it if they had tried harder to pace the film.
Anyway Im off to watch The Rocketeer and Iron Giant for the umpteenth time instead.
Comment by Cibbuano
20/20 Filmsight
Science News
Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
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A Raiders of the Lost Ark-type pace would have been phenomenal.
Comment by SamGrap
but over all id say GREAT JOB
i actually went to the movies to see it then 2 days later i decided it was so good i went again
then i baught the book it's 309 pages and i am 12 and i read it in one day i read it at night and couldnt tear my self away from the book so i stayed up untill 5:00 in the morning reading it!
that was last night and now im reading it again
IRON MAN RULES!
trust me its worth seeing!
(i saw and read it twice!)