Production company: Paramount Pictures; Marvel Studios
Director: Jon Favreau
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Shaun Toub, Leslie Bibb, Bill Smitrovich, Nazanin Boniadi, Micah Hauptman
Rating: PG-13 for violence and some sexuality.
By Gregg Tubbs
(UMC.org)—This time of year, when spring slides into summer, is a special season all its own in Hollywood—blockbuster season. And for several years now, blockbuster season has included movies about superheroes. The first to blast onto the screen this year is
Iron Man, an adaptation of the enduring Marvel Comics series. An action-packed adventure,
Iron Man has a compellingly flawed anti-hero at its center. Underneath all its high-tech flash lies an old fashioned morality tale and story of redemption. The film tells the story of a great sinner who repents and becomes, if not a saint, at least one of the good guys.
Casting is often the great pitfall of superhero movies, but Robert Downey Jr. is perfectly cast as Tony Stark, the hedonistic industrialist who dons a futuristic suit of armor to become a superhero. Stark is, as he says many times in the film, anything but hero material. He is vain, self-indulgent and hopelessly lecherous and hedonistic. But he’s also a brilliant inventor and fierce patriot—both of which play into his role as head of Stark Enterprises, the top supplier of the most advanced and devastating weapons in the U.S. military’s arsenal. Downey, with his own tarnished past and ravaged, but still handsome face, fits the role of the billionaire playboy like a glove.
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Held captive in a remote cave by a radical group, Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) secretly builds his first crude, but powerful, Iron Man suit. Copyright © 2008 Paramount Pictures.
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While demonstrating his new Jericho missile for army brass in Afghanistan, Stark’s motorcade is attacked by a radical, multinational group. Stark is kidnapped and forced to build a Jericho missile for his captors. Injured during his capture, Stark must rely on a powerful energy source strapped to his chest to keep embedded shrapnel from migrating to his heart and causing cardiac arrest. This change in Stark’s physical heart also becomes symbolic of his ethical change of heart. With dismay, he discovers that his captors use the very weapons, rockets, bombs and high-tech arms designed by Stark Enterprises to arm and protect America's troops to instead kill American soldiers and innocent civilians. Even worse, he realizes that these weapons have probably not been obtained through the black market, but rather directly from his own company. With its culture of “zero accountability,” Stark Enterprises often sells arms to both sides of a conflict, putting profit above all ethical and moral considerations.
Determined to right this terrible wrong, Stark secretly builds his first crude, but powerful, Iron Man suit rather than the Jericho missile his captors expect. After a harrowing escape, Stark returns to the states and sets out to create a truly unassailable suit of armor—capable of flight, possessing bludgeoning strength and heavily armed.
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Armed with this protective suit, Stark becomes Iron Man, the superhero, and sets out to disarm those who misuse his own weapons. Copyright © 2008 Paramount Pictures.
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Armed with this protective suit, Stark becomes Iron Man, the superhero, and sets out to disarm those who misuse his own weapons. More importantly, he tries to steer Stark Enterprises away from arms production to the manufacture of peacetime products. Early in the film, he acknowledges—even relishes—his reputation as a “merchant of death,” but now the truly changed Stark, as both billionaire and Iron Man, dedicates himself to preserving life. Yet his most dangerous opposition comes from within his own company and is motivated not by radical beliefs or nationalism, but greed and the worship of the almighty profit margin. Iron Man shows once again that evil often wears a suit and is cloaked in respectability.
Iron Man succeeds not only as action flick, but also as a classic tale of redemption. Not unlike Scrooge or Paul on the Damascus road, Tony Stark experiences a traumatic wake-up call and sees the error of his ways. Though far from a saint, the new Tony Stark tries to undo the damage he’s done and accept accountability for his actions.
The film also addresses issues such as profiting from war, attempting to attain peace through earthly might, and fighting violence with violence. We are also asked to examine our own warring nature, and particularly the concept of the death of innocents, euphemistically called “collateral damage.” Iron Man is a film of both fun and substance, whose imperfect hero struggles to be on the right side in a violent and complex world.
Study Questions
- What is the symbolism of Stark’s new heart? What does it mean to have a change of heart? (See Psalms 51:17, Acts 8:21.)
- Can you root for a hero as flawed as Tony Stark? He says he is not hero material. Why does he believe that?
- Are all heroes perfect? Can you think of real life heroes who also turned out to have great flaws?
- Can you think of heroes from the Bible who had flaws? What about David? Samson? How did God use them anyway?
- How had Stark earned the nickname, “Merchant of Death?” Do you think he was really responsible for deaths of those killed by his weapons or was he just doing “business”?
- Do you believe companies bear a responsibility for the impact of their products? Do you believe there is an atmosphere of “zero accountability” as Stark observes?
- Stark chooses violence as a solution to violence. Is this a choice you would choose? Would Jesus have done the same? (See Matthew 5:39.) Are there limits to passivity and times when an armed response is called for to protect the innocent?
- How is Tony Stark's capture and repentance similar to that of the Apostle Paul? (See Acts 22.) What traumatic experience did Paul undergo? Did he learn of the harm he had done?
- What was Obadiah Stane’s great sin? Was it envy? Greed? Did he envy Stark or simply want to sustain his fortune?
- If you were a super hero, how would you use your power? How would your faith instruct you in this decision?
Resources
Official Iron Man site
Theatrical Trailer
