Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Iron Man

I finally saw "Iron Man" on Sunday, in an attempt to spend some time in air conditioning. Har. The theater was warm, but the movie was surprisingly entertaining.

The movie tells the beginning of the Marvel Comics superhero "Iron Man." The man is Tony Stark, played here by Robert Downey, Jr., a billionaire playboy who runs Stark Industries. Stark produces the latest in technical armaments for war. Tony's inheirited the company from his father, a developer of the atomic bomb, and is mentored by Obediah Stane, played by Jeff Bridges.

While on a look-see in the Middle East, presumably Iraq, Tony's humvee caravan is attacked, and Tony is kidnapped by what we suppose to be terrorists. Tony is severely injured in the attack with a shrapnel bomb -- produced by Stark Industries. He is saved by a doctor, also a captive, who inserts an electo-magnet into Tony's chest cavity to prevent the fragments from piercing his heart.

The terrorists want Tony to build them the newest Stark missle, dubbed the "Jericho." Tony and the doctor spend many days dimantling old equipment, welding, etc. and produce not a bomb, but Iron Man's exoskeleton.

As you might guess, Tony escapes the clutches of the evil doers, and returns to LA a changed man. He wants Stark Industries to stop making weapons, a move not endorsed by an increasingly menacing Stane or the stockmarket.

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