Iron Ban (Jon Favreau, 2008) - B+
Very good -- really. If I'm not creaming myself like some other folks, it's because the action never quite reaches Raimi levels of transcendence, and because the movie indulges in a few too many winks to the comic book fanboys that just play like enormous red herrings to the rest of us. (I gather that the Clark Gregg character is somehow significant to the Iron Man mythos, but I had no idea what the hell he was talking about or why he kept showing up.) At its best, though, it's actually quite moving: if Spider-Man and its sequels have been about heroism and responsibility, Iron Man is about conscience, and holding on to it even if the System would have you throw it in a ditch. Downey's ceaseless sarcasm masks a touching fragility, and the screenplay gives the protagonist time to bloom -- his conversion from cynical arms dealer to justice-seeker is about as convincing as superhero character development gets. And I'm immensely grateful for the ending, which is note-perfect and brilliantly ties together the movie's theme while setting up a sequel. Well-played.
