behind the armor, the moult of a genius inventor

6TER – SUNDAY, MAY 22 AT 9:05 PM – FILM

Beautifully invigorated by the Batman (1989) by Tim Burton, the transposition of ancient comic book superheroes on the screens, which has become one of the trump cards of the Hollywood blockbuster movie, has not stopped since then. After Spiderman, Batman, Hulk, Hellboy, X-Men and others watch men, Iron Man is the latest franchise.

The steel creature, created for the publisher Marvel by Stan Lee (1922-2018), became a series star in its own right in 1968. After The Invincible Iron Manan animated film released in 2007, the first feature film will be directed in 2008 by Jon Favreau – followed by iron man 2, in 2010, then by ironman 3, in 2013. The first part, broadcast on May 22, is not unworthy of the ironic darkness and the feeling of the marvelous that characterize the seam.

The action is resolutely contemporary: Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr., excellent as usual), heir to an arms magnate and genius inventor, portrays a billionaire playboy, cynical and nationalist until the caricature. A trip by private jet to Afghanistan, to present to the boys the latest missile out of its factories, however, will change the situation.

Moral nobility

Captured by a group of merciless terrorists, he is seriously injured by shrapnel, which requires the grafting of a miniaturized generator on his chest, his heart hanging by a thread. Stark develops, in the cave where he is held prisoner, the first draft, artisanal, of a steel armor intended to qualify later his moult.

A colorful carnage later, back home, a new man was born. A man who knows that his own weapons are sold to terrorists, and who decides to put a spell on both of them, by manufacturing, in the greatest secrecy, armor with formidable technology and aesthetics.

Gleaming red steel of the carapace, yellow tapering of the eyes, bluish light of the generator on the chest, shooting star grace in flight, bruised heart and advanced armament in each joint, Iron Man, it must be admitted, does not miss of outfit in the contest of martial elegance and hybrid beauty that our friends the superheroes engage in, without admitting it.

Especially since this physical assumption is enhanced by the moral nobility of an individual who turns, out of ethical conscience, against the man he was and, a major anti-capitalist crime, against the production of his own company. Old Hollywood lesson on the true greatness of America. All of this is done very smoothly.