May 1 (Bloomberg) -- In ``Iron Man,'' the clever, adrenaline-pumping new movie about the Marvel comic-book hero, Tony Stark's longtime assistant Pepper Pots is startled by the sight of robotic arms trying to remove her boss's cherry-red armored suit.

``Let's face it,'' says Stark, a billionaire arms dealer who gains superpowers from the suit he invents to escape Mideast terrorists, ``this is not the worst thing you've caught me doing.''

Like Jon Favreau's movie, the line works on two levels: a reference to the murky past between Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and his sexy aide (Gwyneth Paltrow), and a not-so-subtle jab at Downey's off-screen history of drug abuse and bizarre behavior.

``Iron Man'' can be enjoyed simply as an action/adventure blockbuster with all its computerized bells and whistles, or as a more human-scale drama about a reckless man who discovers a conscience and decides that selling weapons of mass destruction may not be the smoothest road to peace.

Downey was an unlikely choice to play a superhero, but his dark past and self-mocking humor infuse the character with a depth not usually seen in films based on comic books.

Stark, a goateed playboy who lives in a hilltop Malibu mansion, gets kidnapped by bin Laden-like terrorists in Afghanistan after demonstrating his latest world-shattering missile to military brass. After his convoy is blown up and he's taken hostage, a badly wounded Stark is ordered to build a devastating weapon the bearded bad guys can use against their unnamed enemies.

Paging Rumsfeld

Stark refuses, but waterboard torture (I can't wait for Donald Rumsfeld's review) changes his mind. At least that's what he tells his captors. Instead of making a bomb, Stark takes pieces of scrap metal and constructs an armored suit complete with jet-powered boots and fire-shooting appendages. (How he manages to do this under the watchful eye of surveillance cameras isn't explained.)

The invention allows him to escape and return home, where he calls a press conference to renounce arms dealing and order the shutdown of his company's weapons production. This is bad for business -- ``Mad Money'' host Jim Cramer rails against Stark Industries in a self-parody -- as well as his relationship with company executive Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), whose shaved head and neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard make him look like a cross between Gordon Liddy and an evil WWE wrestler.

Frozen Fight

Determined not to let a peacenik destroy the company, Stane builds his own super suit and takes on Stark in an icy showdown in outer space.

Although Paltrow and Terrence Howard (as Stark's military confidant) are wasted in slender supporting roles, Bridges is a terrific villain who ranks right up there with Jack Nicholson's Joker and Danny DeVito's Penguin in the comic-book movie pantheon.

Favreau is probably better known as an indie actor (``Swingers'') than a big-budget director, even though his directing credits include the hit Will Ferrell comedy ``Elf'' and the sci-fi adventure ``Zathura.'' Here, he effectively mixes drama, humor and special effects into a crackling popcorn movie that will undoubtedly spawn sequels and enough ``Iron Man'' gadgets to fill every toy store in the universe.

``Iron Man,'' from Paramount Pictures, opens tomorrow across the U.S. Rating: ***

What the Stars Mean:

****          Excellent
***           Good
**            Average
*             Poor
(No stars)    Worthless

(Rick Warner is the movie critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this story: Rick Warner in New York at rwarner1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 1, 2008 00:01 EDT