In his review of Iron Man in the LA Times (5/1/08), film critic Kenneth Turan complained about the movie’s lack of “dramatic unity,” and he thinks he’s figured out one big reason why:

“Though this feeling is inescapable throughout the film, a key part of the reason isn’t clear until the final credits reveal that two different teams of writers (Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, and Art Marcum and Matt Holloway) worked on the film. And not just worked on it in any conventional way. As an article in Script magazine details, they happily toiled without meeting on separate-but-equal versions of the script that were eventually merged by Marvel and the director.”

Is this any way to make a movie? “Of course not,” screenwriters would likely howl — except for perhaps Fegus & Ostby, Marcum & Holloway, or at least their respective business managers who will be counting coins from the movie, its already announced sequels, and endless ancillary revenue streams for years and years.

Well, I saw the movie the other night and while I concede Turan’s point, I found it a cut above typical comic book superhero movies. The cast is fantastic (how in the world did they manage to get Academy Award winner Gwyneth Paltrow in what has been described as a “handbag part”) and there’s actually a discernable plot that — gasp! — makes sense, along with all the usual CGI bells and rockin’ soundtrack whistles.

But what really elevates the movie for me is the Protagonist Tony Stark’s transformation. Part of it is, of course, Robert Downey Jr.’s performance — hard to imagine any other actor inhabiting the role as well as he does. But it’s both the substance of Tony’s transformation and the way the screenwriters / director / Marvel / whoever managed to use two key characters to initiate Tony’s change that I found compelling.

KIND OF A SPOILER ALERT — NOT THAT MUCH IN THE WAY OF PLOT, BUT…

Without giving much away, the Protagonist’s central emotional / internal conflict is how to take responsibility for having built a career and public persona based upon his company which for years has been the world’s top weapons manufacturer. The substance of that conflict makes for a more mature movie because there are big moral questions in play here, even if they’re handled in a way commiserate with a comic book inspired movie — we don’t see Tony wrestle with these issues in any sort of sustained or deep way, but because Tony is a character who makes snap judgments and quick choices, his head-spinning turnaround basically works.

But it’s precisely because Tony is so instinctual in his decisions that the catalysts who come his way to inspire his newfound path are that much more important to the plot — and surprisingly, this Wisdom / Mentor function is played by a pair of secondary characters.

The first is Leslie Bibb (Christine Everhart), a journalist, who drops into Tony’s life on (as I remember) three occasions, challenging Tony’s business practices from her left-leaning perspective. She ‘feeds’ his thinking, but it’s the second character, Yinsen (Shaun Toub), who both figuratively and even literally provides Tony the heart that fuels the radical transition in his world view. The movie implies that Yinsen is perhaps the first person with whom Tony has had a genuine human encounter in his jet-setting life — and it’s their relationship which becomes the bridge for Tony to make the connection between his weapons and their possible impact on actual people.

Beyond that, Yinsen is one of the movie’s most engaging characters, a comment echoed by a number of students in my most recent class. Which makes me curious: Was it Fegus & Ostby or Marcum & Holloway who created Yinsen? Or some uncredited writer? Some lackey at Marvel? Perhaps when various script drafts hit simplyscripts.com we’ll be able to find out. But one takeaway point for screenwriters: Give care and thought to your secondary characters, as they can provide compelling opportunities in your script.