We love our superheroes, don’t we?  Plenty of them have made the leap from the pages of comic books to the big screen.  Pulling this transition off successfully is tricky for filmmakers because they must take fantastic, overblown characters and integrate them seamlessly into a setting of everyday life.  Comic characters are developed over years, sometimes decades; directors have 2 hours to capture the essences of these established heroes and satisfy old-school fans as well as tell an engaging story.  But that’s not complicated enough!  Comic-book heroes are formulaic, and almost by definition, clichés. How can a director keep his film from feeling like every other superhero-saves-the-world movie?  Ask Jon Favreau.  He’s done it with IRON MAN. Enter the theater, settle in with your popcorn, and leave your expectations at the door.  Favreau takes the classic superhero archetype and skews it just a bit to keep it fresh and exciting.  The familiar template is evident: a guy faces personal tragedy, uses a special talent to embrace a super-power and a secret identity, has a long-time female associate with an alliterative name who’s obviously in love with him that he can’t seem to connect with, faces a betrayal and decides to use his super-power to right universal wrongs.  But this particular guy who we will come to know as “Iron Man” is brilliant. He has no innate anomaly to exploit and must rely on his intelligence and wits, and the world crisis he averts is partially of his own making.  As for the girl?  He loves her back, but he’s pretty rotten at showing it.  Take this slightly off-beat character, add a few cocktails, a little womanizing and more than a few wisecracks, wrap it up in a hot-rod of a high-tech body suit, and you’ve got Iron Man.  Best of all, Favreau makes sure that you don’t have to be a fan of the comic book series to enjoy this film.

Director Favreau has assembled a crack cast for this sci-fi action-adventure.  Robert Downey, Jr., as weapons-tycoon Tony Stark, embraces his role with an enthusiasm and understanding that’s rare in the super-hero genre.  His performance is big without being broad.  Gwyneth Paltrow is Pepper Potts, Stark’s efficient assistant.  From the first time we see her, we realize that she’s in love with her boss, content to work hard and wait for romance.  As our hero and his pretty aide become closer and closer, they both show a vulnerability and confusion that’s absolutely endearing.  Every superhero needs a sidekick, and Stark finds his in Jim “Rhodie” Rhodes (Terrence Howard), a career military man who’s obviously used to bailing Stark out of tight spots.  Howard manages to balance Rhodie’s military precision and a bit of a wild streak with grace and maturity.  There’s the obligatory mentor — an Afghani surgeon ably played by Shaun Toub. The blonde-bombshell reporter (Leslie Bibb) who is intent on exposing Stark as a war profiteer is an aggressive foil for the unflappable Pepper.  As for the faithful butler, we’ve got a great one — although he’s not human.  Jarvis, coolly voiced by Paul Bettany, is the computer system that monitors every facet of Stark’s life, including all of the systems that make the Iron Man function.  So, who are we missing?  The ultra-villain, of course.

Jeff Bridges is perfectly cast as the underhanded, double-dealing, delightfully evil Obadiah Stane, complete with bald head and grey goatee.  Bridges handles the character of Stane with a fast and loose approach, but he stops just short of caricature.  It’s obvious he’s having a grand time with the role, which allows the audience to have a grand time with it as well.

IRON MAN is a movie that rides on the talents of its cast and the deft directorial hand of Jon Favreau.  The movie has its flaws, but it’s still very entertaining.  The dialog is a little too snappy in places.  (But after all, this is a comic adaptation, and comic characters speak one balloon at a time.) The camera work is can be choppy, but this may be a function of the sheer number of computer-generated images required to make the film’s pseudo-science work.  The CGI itself is simply the best that’s come to the big screen in years; perfectly integrated and at times breathtakingly spectacular.