CRITICS’PICKS

You have to hand it to Jon Favreau for knowing how to look past heaps of scrap metal, piles of gadgetry and loads of digital effects to focus on his three-dimensional, charismatic, complicated characters. “Iron Man” is not like other superheroes, and not just because he’s played by the flamboyantly talented, intriguingly back-storied Robert Downey Jr. (ably aided by an over-qualified Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts) but because, unlike so many directors of franchised effects fests, Favreau knows how to tell a story and isn’t afraid to do it. In place of brainless posturing and cheap sloganeering, here’s top-notch writing and acting. If only all comic book movies were this super.