"Iron Man" is heavy spiritual fare

It’s another heavy metal morning… 50 miles to Castle junction…. better get some vibes…



Ok so this post is about Iron Man, for which the sound track is appropriately full of heavy metal – I always love a good pun. So what is so spiritual about Iron Man – an action packed movie that features lots of loud music and cool explosions?

Well, the first theme I want to focus on is forgiveness. Ok this theme is not directly related to the movie but rather to my first experience of trying to see the movie. We went on opening weekend, which I guess was my first mistake. And we took my father with us, our second mistake.
Because of the first error we ended up sitting very near the front and off to the side which was going to make the movie hard to sit through if it hadn’t been for our second mistake. Taking my Dad to the movies for some reason has never worked out. Things always go a little wrong. Sure enough, the movie died half way through. Within seconds the lights were up and a veritable legion of cinema employees were handing out free passes and apologizing for the delay. After a few minutes they again appeared and informed us that the movie was not going to be able to continue because it was broken beyond repair but we could either get another free ticket or a refund. Wow, it is really hard to maintain righteous anger when people do their best to repair the damage they did to you (crick in the neck and 1hr wasted time). Biblically the recommendation in the face of trying to repair relationships was to repay double or triple for the wrong you did. And there it was in front of me the process in action. And I went home actually a little happy because I had free movie tickets.

Which brings me to the second attempt to watch the movie (with my free tickets!) in a much emptier theatre from a very good spot ¾ of the way back and in the centre. It was pretty good.
And so we come to the other theme I wanted to bring up, meaning. Tony Stark, the main character, is a man in search of how to make his life meaningful. It is interesting to watch how the character’s definition of what constitutes meaning plays out. I don’t want to give any spoilers though so I can’t say more than that. I merely offer it as a lens through which you may choose to watch the film. I think that there are many other deeply spiritual themes in this movie and I can’t wait to see it again. Also did I mention the cool action….

K