5 Responses for "Robert Downey Jr. says: “I. Am. IRON MAN!”"

1. cash

   September 29th, 2006 at 7:33 pm

   1

   You don’t think a guy wearing purple and green and sporting magic rings can be menacing? Did you never see Huggy Bear???

   Oh wait, The Mandarin is Chinese. I agree, a Chinese guy can’t pull off that outfit.

2. byz

   September 30th, 2006 at 3:51 am

   2

   stark is an alcoholic ? – i didn’t know that

3. Mark Pellegrini

   September 30th, 2006 at 1:39 pm

   3

   Yeah, that’s something they tagged onto his character in the 80’s, debilitating alcoholism, and it’s stuck ever since. It adds some depth to Stark, though it is a bit annoying when he falls off the wagon for the trillionth time.

4. christina

   October 2nd, 2006 at 12:24 pm

   4

   i love marvel! I’m a marvel-girl…i’d definitely like to see this

5. g

   October 2nd, 2006 at 3:17 pm

   5

   Let say this, the choice of Mr. Downey was not only surprising but shear genius. The “natural” marketing on this move simply was a master stoke. The personal and characterial parallels that will undeniably and inseparably be drawn between Robert Downey Jr. and Iron Man will bestow real-life credence to a character, that on the surface, is just a playboy billionaire, but in actuality is as dark and as complex as Batman or Submariner. The individual talent that Mr. Downey will impart to the comic book character will bring a new level of reality and tortured accessibility that not even the comic book writers could ever envisioned Iron Man would strike in the hearts and minds of it’s readers. Moreover, the problem with any comic book character is you need an origin style movie in order “get into” the mind or to fetter out the reasoning’s to why they are doing what they are doing. Subsequently, this leaves precious little time for good plot development and/or villain background development.
   With this casting the actor actually brings a history with him that creates a given to the role. It brings certain understandings and anticipated behaviors that will be transferred to the character whether you want them or not. And in this case it is a bonus. The past press Mr. Downey has garnered throughout his career could be cut and pasted to Tony Starks life with no one disputing the fundamental facts of the Tony Stark/Iron Man character. Not to mention that all the entertainment shows and news persons will hash out now and until the time of the opening the parallels of both Stark and Downey so much so to the point, that Iron Man / Tony Starks origin story will already be taught even before the film starts rolling, and Jon Favreau can simply start with more “meat” and more substance to movie that less boring background lag time won’t be cluttering up the plot as well as the use of CGI and slide of hand tricks being relied upon to keep viewers interest.
   Let’s remember, that with the exceptions of Sir Ian McKellan and Sir Patrick Stewart, the cast of X-men all owe whatever household prominence to Marvel. The successes of Spiderman and the X-men franchises are due in part to the fact that mostly unknown actors or young actors with little or more media history didn’t bring personal PR baggage with them and could do the characters they would be portraying some shred of justice. In this case Mr. Downey’s personal history is exactly what the doctor ordered. We see when the power of the star and not the power of the acting is what is placed in priority (Ben Affleck and Eric Bana) the movies tend to be either mediocre or just plain bad. When an actor is picked we all tend to try to imagine how he or she will be in the role by thinking of past roles as well as how we feel about them in their “personal” life. Tom Cruise was fine as a smart ass playboy type but we could see him as a tortured soul. Tim Dalton will always be the failed James Bond, therefore a failed billionaire playboy, though Dalton is fine actor, in his owe right and could play the tortured and pained Stark. This move will undoubtedly but Mr. Downey on the mainstream map again, but the difference is now he can handle it and the possibility of franchise is promising. I for one will expect this to out gross all past Marvel movies. If you really want to look at a glimce of how Mr. Downey will do as Tony Stark/Iron Man just look at what was acclaim (at the time) with his work in Less Than Zero, and how he captured the style and nuance of the character when he played Chaplin. I’m sold!!!