to discuss with Stark an upcoming project known as “The Avenger Initiative.” Since Iron Man has been long a member of the Marvel superhero team “The Avengers,” Nick Fury’s appearance suggests the first in a series of teasers conceived to assemble that cast of superheroes. A so-called origin story like BATMAN BEGINS, with a screenplay having significant contributions by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (CHILDREN OF MEN), IRON MAN is smart, entertaining SF cin- ema that features a wonderful, strong performance by Robert Downey, Jr. His Tony Stark is an im- probable super-hero, an eccentric billionaire ge- nius like Bruce Wayne, but with a self-deprecating sense of humor and a James Bond wit (“Give me a Scotch, I’m starving”). He’s also a boozy playboy whose lifestyle belies a person who is fundamentally a loner, but a happy one, content to remain within himself, his intellect matched only by his derring-do. Like other comic book superheroes, Tony Stark chooses to work alone, outside conventional sys- tems of justice, and enact his own form of social and moral order, but the special twist of IRON MAN is in the form of its enemy, one that is not external, but inside—the enemy within.


Spread across a BD-50 dual-layer disc, Paramount’s Blu-ray presentation is reference qual- ity. Framed at 2.40:1, the colors are vibrant and blacks excellent. Image detail and depth are out- standing. In addition, the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 sur- round mix rocks the house—this is a big budget action flick, after all, so as expected there are some floor-rumbling action sequences, with the climac- tic battle in particular acting as the home theater equivalent of a sonic boom. Yet, even at high


volume, the clarity and sonic detail are superb. As might be expected, Paramount’s “Ultimate 2-Disc Edition” contains a vast number of supplements, with the added bonus of presenting all the materi- als in full HD, along with English, French, Span- ish and Portuguese subtitles. In addition to the feature, the first disc contains the roughly 49m, six-part documentary, “The Invincible Iron Man,” exploring the creation and evolution of the Iron Man comic book character, and includes informa- tive interviews with several long-time Marvel writ- ers and artists, including Stan Lee, Gerry Conway, Gene Colan, and John Romita, Jr. The first disc also includes “Hall of Armor,” an interactive three- dimensional stills gallery, consisting of the “Stark Database” and all three versions of the Iron Man suit as well as Obadiah Stane’s “Iron Monger” suit. An engaging supplement, it allows for detailed ex- aminations of each suit as well as a “zoom” fea- ture for closer inspection. The requisite deleted and extended scenes material, now a standard fea- ture on most DVD issues, can also be found on the disc. There are eleven different clips totaling about 24m. The extended scenes are distinguished by con- taining additional dialogue, but there are a couple of interesting action sequences that were cut from final battle sequence, perhaps the most interesting of the material included; some of the material has timecodes and other graphic overlays. The disc also includes the “BD Live” link, allowing for Internet ac- cess to a server with additional supplemental ma- terials. We found the BD-Live material to consist of an “Iron Man IQ,” which we declined to explore. The second disc contains the bulk of the supplements, and we must admit we wore out


In one of IRON MAN’s most startling scenes, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) must reach into Stark’s chest cavity to replace his embedded mini arc reactor.


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