ACTION

Iron Man***

• Rated PG-13
• Playing At: AMC Orange Park 24, AMC Regency 24, Carmike Amelia Island 7, Cinemark Tinseltown, Hollywood River City 14, Regal Avenues 20, Regal Beach Blvd. 18, Regal Mall St. Augustine 6, San Marco Theatre

Isn't It Ironic?                                                                                     PHILIP BOOTH

A superhero-- and actor-- are reborn in a new comic book adaptation

    "I shouldn’t be alive unless it was for a reason,” Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), the wisecracking, womanizing, genius billionaire who would be Iron Man explains about his newfound mission in life. Once a no-regrets head of a weapons manufacturing conglomerate, which he inherited from his father, Stark has decided to become an agent of change, applying his technological expertise to aid those Middle Easterners whose lives were ruined or disrupted by weapons of his own creation. His change of heart comes courtesy of a traumatic stay in a cave in Afghanistan, where terrorists of many accents — and no particular religious fundamentalism — imprisoned the celebrity mogul in hopes of forcing him to build a missile for them — using illegally obtained Stark Industries parts. Stark’s dunderheaded captors, it seems, were too dim to appreciate the difference between a missile and a revved-up suit of armor.

Iron Man, hanging about at the back of the Marvel superhero pack since Stan Lee and collaborators created the character 45 years ago for “Tales of Suspense,” is reborn in the hands of director Jon Favreau (“Elf,” “Swingers”) and a quartet of screenwriters. And the result is an entertaining action flick with the talented if troubled Downey in the lead role.

     The desert dwellers and their swarthy, dramatically scarred Genghis Khan-loving leader qualify as terrorists. But Iron Man’s way of thinking — “First, let’s blow up all the weapons I’ve created” — comes from a higher power. The malevolent double-dealers, like one of Stark’s closest business associates, are located right here at home. Or something like that. (Apparently the only effective strategy for profiting on a movie about the Iraq war is to make it only tangentially related to any actual war.)

     Political fuzziness aside, “Iron Man” launches the 2008 summer movie season that’s looking good for Hollywood. Downey is sharp, funny and more than a little charismatic in a role that requires him to hold the center of a high-priced action spectacle. If all goes as planned, he will shoulder this new Marvel film franchise. His verbal exchanges with Pentagon friend Rhodey (Terrence Howard) and loyal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, making much of a surprisingly slim role) are fast-paced and funny. It’s a pleasure watching Stark, before his epiphany for peace conversion, cross swords with various media types, including a liberal-leaning reporter with whom he exchanges harsh words. The feud is merely foreplay to an unclothed session back at his lavish, high-tech mansion, perched high on a Malibu cliff.

     It’s great fun, too, seeing the emotional sparks fly when Stark, adorned with a jet-black Vandyke beard, is pitted against chrome-domed former colleague Obadiah Stane, played against type by Jeff Bridges, in a performance that suggests the veteran actor has a future playing dastardly villains. When the faces disappear behind digitally generated metal suits, however, the silliness quotient rises.

     The hot metal-on-metal action, spilling over into the streets of downtown Los Angeles, is reminiscent of the giant robot smackdowns in “Transformers.” There are clear borrowings, too, from other, better films — the learning-to-leap sequences in “Spider-Man,” visuals from “The Iron Giant,” the Batcave and playboy bachelor aspects of “Batman” movies, and the berating but helpful robots of “Star Wars.”

     As the first in a planned series, “Iron Man” mostly does what a good super-hero movie is intended to do. Stark and his alter ego are tough but sympathetic — of course, his parents died long ago. He’s brilliant, the better to create and use untold sleek technological gadgets. He has the benefit of meeting and beating worthy opponents. And he’s emotionally vulnerable, as a friend points out: “So, you are a man who has everything and nothing?” Call it an impressive start for a Downey-based marvel — so to speak.

DOCUMENTARY

Bomb It

• Playing At: Friday and Saturday, May 9 and 10 at 11:55 p.m. San Marco Theatre, 1996 San Marco Blvd., Jacksonville 389-4845

Paint Ball                                               HENRY SALAZAR

Grafitti artists around the globe say it and spray it in a new documentary

     The term “Bomb It” refers not just to the act of adding graffiti to a private or public space, but implies an inherent skill or artistic approach. The documentary “Bomb It” provides an opportunity for those in the graffiti subculture to express and sometimes defend themselves, since in most cities, graffiti art is still illegal.

     The storytellers range from an attractive young woman trying to prove herself in a male-dominated world to the socially conscious tagger (slang term for a graffiti artist) trying to change the world one drawing at a time.

     “Bomb It” begins by comparing the significance of graffiti art with the of early cave drawings. Then the doc quickly transitions to Philadelphia and the modern graffiti movement to the late 1960s — and a man who called himself Cornbread. Cornbread was determined to become famous by using nothing more than spray cans, and he succeeded, inspiring a legion of fans that quickly followed his lead and began painting their own cities as a way to make names for themselves.

     Graffiti lent itself nicely to the hip-hop culture of the ’80s. As inner-city kids hit the streets with boom boxes and parachute pants, the efforts of graffiti artists grew increasingly extreme. The documentary shows that all public spaces are fair game for the graffiti artist, especially New York City’s subway trains. And though graffiti in NYC is ubiquitous, many still equate graffiti with crime and violence. New York officials feel this is because people assume there is a lack of official control over an area that’s overrun with graffiti. Consequently, “Bomb It” shows Big Apple officials imposing stiffer sentences on those caught bombing public places.

     From New York, “Bomb It” treks across the globe, giving graffiti artists all over the world the chance to explain why they’ve chosen this particular avenue of expression. The reasons are as varied as one might imagine. Like legit artists, some of them do it because they have too. Some do it simply to take a stand against society. Still others truly believe they are doing a community service by making public areas more beautiful and more interesting. These socially conscious taggers see development of large, drab buildings as the death of the aesthetic beauty and history of their city. Beauti-

fication through bombing, to them, is not only a right, but a duty.

     South Africa is the backdrop for some of the film’s most compelling scenes. Graffiti is not only a way for oppressed youth to express their angst, it’s been employed an instrument to demonstrate against apartheid. It’s frighteningly clear during this particular sequence that punishment for the rebellious act of spray-painting could be death.

     “Bomb It” then changes gears and gives voice to those who see graffiti as an abomination, or simple vandalism, at best. While time spent with those who oppose graffiti is decidedly less than that spent with the artists, the film avoids painting the opposition as antagonistic. Their ideology is given equal and respectful consideration.

SUSPENSE

Deception*

• Rated R

• Playing At: AMC Orange Park 24, AMC Regency 24, Cinemark Tinseltown, Hollywood River City 14, Regal Avenues 20, Regal Beach Blvd.

Who's Fooling Who?                                                                   PAT McLEOD

Suspense flick "Deception" gets weak in the knees by its unsatisfying end

• Rated R

•Playing At: AMC Orange Park 24, AMC Regency 24, Carmike Amelia Island 7, Cinemark Tinseltown, Hollywood River City 14, Regal Avenues 20, Regal Beach Blvd. 18

     For roughly half of its nearly two-hour running time, “Deception” is a good movie. Not particularly original, but at least interesting. The film runs downhill quickly, however, as it thuds to its third act, undone by predictable scripting and lackluster direction. The last 15 minutes, in particular, are incredibly bad, striving for surprise but settling for the most banal sentimentality imaginable, especially for what is supposed to be, at least in part, an erotic thriller.

     Ewan McGregor plays accountant Jonathan McQuarry, who spends his life auditing the books of big companies, isolated in his orderly realm of numbers from the world around him. The opening scene finds him alone at night in an office building, pecking away at his computer while casting an envious glance at the not-so-surreptitious sexual activities of the maid and janitor. His hotel room is as boring as his life, the only salient feature of the room being a leaky water pipe. (The filmmakers practically underline the fact that this is going to be a significant detail.)

     Jonathan’s dull routine is radically altered after a chance meeting one night at the office with hotshot attorney Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman). A member of the firm Jonathan is auditing, Wyatt is everything the auditor is not — relaxed, confident and experienced, particularly with women. The two quickly become friends, and Wyatt offers Jonathan a glimpse into a life of pleasure and comfort the mild accountant can scarcely imagine.

Suddenly, that very same lifestyle becomes his undoing after he and Wyatt accidentally switch cell phones. While the attorney is off in Paris for a business meeting, Jonathan is introduced — via the slick lawyer’s cell phone — to a secret sex club. Its members dial one another when they’ve got a particular itch to scratch. The basic rules of the club, Jonathan soon learns, are no names and no rough stuff. Apart from that, just about anything goes.

     The accountant is soon having himself a ball, quite literally, with one hot woman after another, night after night. When he finds himself paired up with a beautiful blonde (Michelle Williams) he’d met briefly on the subway earlier, Jonathan finds himself falling madly in love, his lust on hold for a while. The anonymous woman, known only as “S,” would seem to be feeling the same … and then, KABLOOEY! A bloody hotel room, a knock on the head, a police inquiry and a reintroduction to a now-sinister Wyatt finds Jonathan in a deadly cat-and-mouse game. And the trap has been set.

     So far, so good. Once the “deception” of the title has been revealed, however, everything rolls downhill. The credibility of the plot, strained at best from the start, rapidly unravels through the extended climax, dribbling to an unsatisfying end.

     “Deception” has several predecessors in its own peculiar genre. Curtis Hanson’s “Bad Influence” (1990) with Rob Lowe harrying James Spader, is perhaps the most immediate influence, but Joseph Losey’s “The Servant” (1963, with Kirk Bogarde doing a number on James Fox) also comes to mind, as well as Hitchcock’s masterful “Strangers on a Train” (1951, featuring Robert Walker menacing Farley Granger). All three of those earlier films had solid scripts and creative direction, both of which “Deception” sorely lacks. The screenplay for the new film is by Mark Bomback (“Live Free or Die Hard”), with newcomer Marcel Langenegger behind the camera. At best, both are competent, at least for the first two thirds, but the direction in particular is incapable of salvaging the weak denouement.

     Hugh Jackman is fun to watch as the attractive but thoroughly nasty villain, and Ewan McGregor offers his always-reliable steady performance. As co-producer, Jackman obviously relished the chance to play the bad guy before baring his claws again for the new “Wolverine” film. Michelle Williams is lovely and appealing, too, which is about all her role needs.

     Disappointing after a promising build-up, “Deception” would have done better to focus on the sex club aspect of the plot, which at least gave some film time to Maggie Q and Charlotte Rampling. There was an interesting germ of an idea, “Fight Club” in the bedroom, maybe. As it is, we just get more of the same.