IRON MAN

Where is it playing?: Bay, Sunset Drive-In, Downtown Centre, Park, Stadium 10

What's it rated?: PG-13

What's it worth?: $8.50

In this comic book adaptation, Robert Downey, Jr. plays Tony Stark, an industrial titan whose Stark Industries is a major weapons manufacturer. While demonstrating a new missile in Afghanistan, his Humvee is attacked and he’s taken hostage by a local warlord, who demands he build his new missile system by assembling parts from a cache of Stark Industries weapons. Instead he builds an armored suit that he uses to escape capture, and after returning home to America, he builds a newer flying version of the suit to combat evil.

Oh, to be Tony Stark! The fast-talking engineering genius has the coolest toys, a sprawling cliff-top mansion in Malibu, untold wealth, a stream of hot women, and the sort of self-confidence and charm that’s irresistible. When Vanity Fair reporter Christine Everhart (Leslie Bibb) interviews Stark for a hit piece she’s working on, it doesn’t take long for her set aside her ideals and succumb to his charms. After a romp in the sack, she wakes up alone and is ushered out of the mansion by Stark’s stalwart personal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, cast as the emotional center of the film). Stark is absolutely carefree. For him, life’s a game and he’s the best player.

There’s inspired casting throughout this film, from Jeff Bridges as Stark’s business partner Obadiah Stane to Terrance Howard as Stark’s army pal Jim Rhodes to Shaun Toub as Yinsen, Stark’s fellow prisoner in the mountains of Afghanistan. The acting’s first rate, which is more than one could hope for in a comic book flick. Most of the action is in the film’s latter two thirds, but I enjoyed the first third best as we’re introduced to Stark’s decidedly unheroic personality, a classic set up for a character ripe for an ethical epiphany. (126 min.)

—Glen Starkey