For a movie about a guy in a metal suit, the first Iron Man moved with surprising grace and a minimum of clanking. Jon Favreau, who’d never directed a superhero action picture before, and Robert Downey Jr., who’d never starred in one, pulled off the rarest of feats: They made a seemingly effortless blockbuster, an exhilarating picture that never let us see it sweat. Downey’s Tony Stark, a playboy kajillionaire who owed his good fortune to the military-industrial complex, was a charmer with an ego, and he wasn’t about to apologize for it. Like all good superheroes, he had his vulnerable side too, but Downey presented Stark’s contradictions as if they were all of a piece, instead of turning them on or off with the flick of a switch. He mapped the character’s psychic pain by doing a soft-shoe around it — hard to do in a futuristic metal jumpsuit, but then, that’s Downey.
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REVIEW: Overstuffed Iron Man 2 Needs More Downey, Less Dazzle
