Gee whiz! Iron Man is great! I’ve read more than my share of comics, but I never read Iron Man. I pretty much missed the boat on Marvel altogether. I think Spiderman was the only Marvel book I picked up as a kid. We didn’t have much money so all I had to read were my dad’s old comics, which were pretty much all Batman and Groo, with some smatterings of a few titles that never got popular but were drawn by his favorite artists. My mom was just glad I was reading until she noticed all his old Frank Frazetta calendars were in the same box under the Mad Magazines. Anyways I had no clue why they were even making an Iron Man movie, but when I read that Jon Favreau was directing I knew it would be well worth my time.

Iron Man is Tony Stark(played perfectly by Robert Downey Jr.), gazillionaire and boss at Stark Industries, a corporation that invents awesome stuff- including weapons for war. His best friend is Jim Rhodes (played perfectly by Terrence Howard), a powerful military man. Pepper Potts (played perfectly by Gwyneth Paltrow) is Stark’s personal assistant. Obadiah Stane is 2nd in command or something at Stark Industries, he was best friends with Stark’s dad. I’m terrible with faces so I didn’t realize Obadiah was played by The Dude AKA Jeff Bridges (who was perfect by the way) until I heard him talk. Everyone is so good here.

This is an origin story, but don’t think it’s going to be like every other origin story. It’s definitely got its act together. Stark is a regular guy, he doesn’t get covered in radioactive ooze or get struck by lightening. He’s a super smart scientist inventor who’s also super slick with the ladies. He’s put into a position that forces him to grow a conscience. I’m not saying Stark is a perfectly moral dude, he’s not. He kills terrorists when Batman would’ve delivered them to jail (I know Batman has killed in the past, but it’s been a rare occurrence). He’s also an alcoholic, which I hear is a big deal, but not in this movie. I believe they’re saving that storyline for the sequel. And yes, they hinted at a sequel a few times in the film. With every origin story you get the obligatory new-invention-test-run-that-doesn’t-go-so-well montages. These are pretty fun, but the action scenes are spectacular. Holy cow was I excited. I was alone in the theater and after each awesome moment I couldn’t keep from saying out loud how cool that was.

Jon Favreau really hits it out of the park this time. I’ve always admired him for focusing on story and character rather than special effects (I’m looking at you Transformers). He even prefers using practical effects instead of CGI whenever possible. The last movie he directed was Zathura. It wasn’t just a quasi sequel to Jumanji, it was a great movie for all ages. It was full of practical effects and the movie was better for it, it didn’t hurt that he had a fully fleshed out script either though.

I predict that Iron Man will be huge. It’s going to have great word of mouth. If Indy 4 doesn’t deliver, and early reports say it won’t, then everyone should go watch Iron Man a second or third time. Iron Man isn’t perfect, I think it has maybe 2 extremely minor flaws; I couldn’t find either one. Don’t hesitate throwing down that $10 for a ticket. You’ll get your money’s worth.

Last 5 posts by Jesse Wayne

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