The ticklish fun of Iron Man comes from watching a happy cast in fighting trim make a concept that should sink like a lead dirigible do cartwheels on the ground and barrel-rolls in the sky.
Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark, a munitions tycoon who learns the dangers of arms proliferation first-hand when he's kidnapped in Afghanistan and sees that his weapons are best-sellers in enemy territory. His insurgent captors order him to create a copy of his devastating Jericho missile system. He instead uses their stash of Stark Industries materiel to design a new-millennial armor that will allow him to fight and fly his way out of the bad guys' caves.
