*Turning Swords Into Ploughshares, Oops! ….Iron Men

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Trailer Of The Film "Iron Man"

DVD Review

Iron Man, starring Robert Downey, Jr, 2008

In the normal course of my work in this space I don’t generally review current commercial films, except when they provide some kind of political or social comment that is in line with those aims. Or when I am feeling a little whimsical or wicked after watching a “light” film that is just pure entertainment. That turns out to be the case here.

Let’s face it, how can one seriously knock a film that is based on a comic book character? Reading about or viewing such characters was virtually a rite of passage for any child, right? Here whiz kid (or elder kid) and mega-rich defense contractor Tony Stark, played very nicely by Robert Downey, Jr., just happens to have had a “conversion” experience in of all places, modern day Afghanistan (if one can accept that as a correct term in that benighted country) as a result of a very close call with the results of his own weaponry at the hands of a Taliban-like organization.

As a result, Brother Stark will not, however, ‘go gentle into that good night’ and begin to preach some form of pacifism but will turn the nature of modern nasty and brutish combat on its head and return, via high technology, to the good old medieval days of individual knightly combat. One on one, up close and personal. Needless to say, that knight will be none other than the whiz kid Stark. Throw in a little off-hand old-fashioned chaste romance with his fair damsel, oops, Girl Friday (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) and you have the makings of a very good…comic book story. Kudos for that part.

No kudos, however, for the little premise that was always behind these super-hero adventure stories. Wait on an individual ‘savior” to come by and save us from ourselves. If we wait for the “white knight” to come and save us from this wicked old world we are in serious trouble. Although this film was fun to watch and a nice spoof I’ll stick with the mass plebeian struggle to turn those swords into ploughshares. And by the way, individual knight or massed troops isn’t it about time to get out, way out, of Afghanistan now. The comic books, and their very appealing characters, are of no use for use on that proposition though.