The attention to period detail here is exquisite, from Keira Knightley and Sienna Miller's wardrobe to the washed-out, war-time tone that permeates John Maybury's camerawork. From the get-go, it is Knightley's sexual pull and dominance, however,
which is the main attraction, as she reacquaints herself with a past love in the form of Dylan Thomas (played by Matthew Rhys) and his new girlfriend (Sienna Miller as Caitlin MacNamara) in Second World War London. It's not long after that William Killick's (Cillian Murphy) soldier eyes have clapped on her too, and everyone is in love with Keira's Vera Phillips.
The four drink, think, live and love together, until, just as jealousy in Thomas is at a peak, Killick is called off to fight.
The remaining three move to the country and Thomas's appetite for love and recognition spills out into jealousy of the two women's intense friendship, which teeters between sisterly love and a far more sexually heated attraction.
Once a war-hardened William returns to the domesticity, the foursome set about destroying everything around them, including the ideals they once sought to protect.
IRON MAN (12) £19.99Director: Jon Favreau
Running time: 126 minutes
***
A rock'n'roll superhero? It was really only a matter of time before Robert Downey Jr got his hands on the whisky-drinking lothario fit for a modern age and made him his own. Downey Jr does just that as his wry humour and maverick potential peppers itself through the arch scripting of Tony Stark's transformation from millionaire arms dealer to steel-clad champion of the free world.
It's the Afghans wot done it, and as Stark is captured and instructed to reconstruct nuclear weapon designs, he subverts his captors and comes out of the cave as Iron Man. Nifty work.
The appeal of Iron Man as a comic book hero has always been that he was just a regular guy, with no embodiment of superpowers, but rather someone smart enough to make them himself.
The appeal of this contemporary twist is without doubt the fact that the film retains its natural credentials by, on the whole, refusing to succumb to special effects to any outrageous extent.
Jeff Bridges is suitably Machiavellian in his role as friend-turned-foe Obadiah Stane, and Gwyneth Paltrow plays it cool as girl Friday Pepper Pots.
