Iron Man

A superhero movie directed by Jon Favreau and starring Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow? Oddness abounds. I can't say I understand why any studio would bank on this highly talented but commercially moot trio to launch a franchise. But the bravery pays off big time. This team has it in spades. Favreau, working from a screenplay credited to Mark Fergus (Children of Men) among others, sells Iron Man as a surprisingly timely tale of a war profiteer turned moral avenger. Even more impressively, he is not brought down by the impulse to handle this material with a numbing level of seriousness. Downey is as cheeky as ever, making a fool of himself, mocking Iron Man canon blithely, and then saving the world with all the fun and heroism you can want from a comic book avenger.

Tony Stark (Downey) is the foremost inventor of modern weapons of war. He is a self-proclaimed merchant of death and a gossip column staple for his misbehavior and womanizing ways. During an on location trial run, he is kidnapped by a terrorist group whose affiliations are purposefully, and appropriately, left murky. In the end, this is more of a film about greed and corruption than it is about world politics. Tony braves three months in captivity before making his daring escape in a metal suit that makes him something close to invincible. Upon his arrival back in the United States, he finds himself reformed. He does not want to contribute to death but instead save lives. He builds an even better suit, after some comically unsuccessful trial runs. With this new technology he sets out to stop those who aim to use his weapons for cruel and violent purposes. He's aided by snippy, flirtatious assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) who lends moral support to her wounded, emotionally frazzled boss. Soon enough she's in on the game and helping Tony to stand up to his own corporation, which has fallen under the control of former mentor Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) and lost its way.

As an origin story, the central narrative is understandably burdened by exposition and development with a very minimal pay off in the film's predictable final showdown. But the groundwork for a very satisfying franchise is laid here. And even when we're watching Tony's early trials and other time consuming scenes that are needed to explain the complex mythology of Iron Man, we're treated to the charm and pluck of Downey. Even when left to himself or forced to act against glitching lab robots, he's a winner. He turns Tony Stark into a morally solid but personally iffy character who does what is right but feels no self-righteous angst over the way he betters peoples lives. Most satisfyingly, he is a character who is not shy about acknowledging how cool the events of the film are. Unlike the savvy, jaded Bruce Wayne or the eternally stone-faced Clark Kent. Tony Stark hoots and hollers as he takes flight for the first time. His discovery mirrors our discovery and we're left feeling like there is a very real, very flawed man hidden beneath that metal suit.

Iron Man is not exactly a revolutionary feature in the Marvel filmography but it's a fun and likable launch pad for a very interesting addition to the cinema heroes of our time. It may be an action adventure film, but it's heart is very much in the tradition of screwball comedy. Downey and Paltrow are smart, ultra flawed star crossed lovers struck down by the complications of their circumstances. It's a sharp twist on the formula that allows for charm and comfort alongside messages about corporate misconduct and modern violence. Favreau has set the tone for something special that is likely to be a long lasting summer tradition.

Grade:B+

Speed Racer

Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) is a plucky newcomer to the racing scene. But he is greeted with hype due to his heritage - brother Rex (Scott Porter) was a casualty of race culture and his parents (John Goodman and Susan Sarandon) own an operate an independent race company. Tag along characters which include a girlfriend (Christina Ricci), a mysterious accomplice (Matthew Fox), a nuisance little brother (Paulie Litt), and a monkey also help fill out the ensemble. The need for detailed description of each character is minimal as most are portrayed as stock characters dancing in front of a sugary sweet digital world. The time and place of the story is some magical, unreal future or alternate present in which clouds really do resemble cotton candy and homes appear as digitally constructed as real estate straight out of the SIMS. The reality is nonexistent. The fantasy is cardboard cutout creative at best. This is a film that just doesn't work from the word 'go.'

You have to give the Wachowskis credit for trying. Five years after the completion of their Matrix trilogy, they pick back up with this, a famous family property, against all odds. The attempt to create something decidedly younger, more family oriented is admirable. So is the attempt to recreate "Speed Racer" in all its eye-popping animated glory, despite this being a live action picture. Perhaps the flaws are in the material by nature. The stiff stories of the the campy 1960s cartoon, which enjoyed a winking and nudging resurgence later in the 1990s on MTV, don't stretch well to fit a feature length production. The visual luster of the cartoon is also distinctively more suitable for animated images. The Wachowskis spend much of their film, perhaps too much, chasing the high of seeing Speed Racer whizzing through hypnotic images of neon lights and spiraling pastel beams of color.

In the visually stimulating, plot-lite race scenes, the film does sometimes achieve a respectable amount of sustained energy. The Wachowskis are undoubtedly visual maestros but what they do with the character here is appalling. The sullen, 2-D characters walk around in half-conscious states, announcing their feelings aloud, with no subtlety, and then shrinking back into the scenery and boring us to tears. Nearly every character gives Speed a very long speech at one point explaining to him, in merciless detail, just how wonderful he is and how much they want him to succeed. It's painful to sit through. No shred of truth can be found in the clunkily written material, which should put young audiences to sleep. Worse yet, it makes the talented cast look like rank amateurs. Not even Oscar winner Sarandon can muster enough heart to pull off her wordy, unbelievable lecture. Lead actors Emile Hirsch and Christina Ricci, who came into their own last year in Into the Wild and Black Snake Moan respectively, are downright wooden and unlikable here. So much of the film's first half is bogged down in half-witted chatting and stalling that by the time the film's real story finally kicks in, the audience is in a sour, burdened mood after being spoon fed so much tasteless exposition. Thankfully, the big race finale actually turns out to be quite a pulsing, very satisfying bit of Summer blockbuster excitement. Too bad all that comes before is such a clumsy downer.

Grade: C

DVD of the Week: I'm Not There

In his backdoor biopic, I'm Not There, director Todd Haynes paints a loopy and intoxicating mosaic of elusive rock & roll icon Bob Dylan that reads something like an abstract portrait made for the cinema. Dylan is represented through six different characters that embody different attributes from different periods of his life. None of them is specifically named "Bob Dylan" and hardly any one of their stories contains more than mere pencil sketches of actual truth, but they are each, in their own way, imaginative and emotive mini-masterpieces. I should also state that this is not a film depicted in clear cut segments but rather a montage tone poem that weaves strands of fact with strands of fiction and moments of joy with moments of sorrow. It doesn't really tell the story of Bob Dylan's life. It simply picks up all the shards of Dylan's many shattered public representations, both accurate and inaccurate, and melds them into one grand statement on the way people, particularly celebrities, have not one face but many.