Iron Man (movie review)

Iron Man is all over the place!  It’s already the 2nd best opening for a non-sequel (Spider-Man still at #1) and the 10th largest all-time opening!  But is the movie any good?  I’m very pleased to say it is!

I’m not all that up-to-date with the comics, so I came into the movie with less background than, say, Spider-Man, X-Men, or Batman.  The plot is not that deep, so I’ll spare you the potential spoilers.  All you need to know is that Tony Stark is a tech-genius, multi-billionaire, playboy who doesn’t care much of the misery his weapons company creates until he comes into an encounter which will change his point of view, and happen to force him to develop the armor.  The rest is armor development, romance, various conflicts, and the said armor in use.

At arms length, this sounds like typical super-hero movie fare.  Yes it is, but it does that focused job beautifully!  Robert Downey Jr. does a superb job playing Tony Stark.  The quirks, character flaws, behavior, and character transformation all come through as authentic, entertaining and believable, no small feat for a super-hero movie.  The Iron Man (or Iron-Mans) are well done, you will never get bored looking at them and you’ll be waiting for what it can do next.

The biggest surprise for me was the Gwyneth Paltrow’s portrayal of Pepper and the treatment of the whole love-interest thing (I guess there always MUST be a love-interest, oh well).  Typically, female love-interests in superhero movies are either hapless victims who need rescuing (and who are the greatest source of inspiration/inner-power for the hero) or gung-ho master’s of their own domain who are at par with the hero, if not superior (at least prior to the hero’s “final inspiration moment”).  Pepper, on the other hand, although obviously instrumental in Tony’s life, is NOT the sole object of Tony’s existence.  She’s an assistant, no special fighting skills, no hidden powers, just the assistant who genuinely cares for the lead and who does what she can to help out.  Hapless victims get annoying, and gung-ho love-interests are fun, but this time, the relationship is kept somewhat real.  I was fully expecting Gwyneth to be annoying, instead I found her very refreshingly convincing in her role!  Kudos!

My only minor gripe is that you really really want to see the armor in action a lot more.  It’s not that the armor ain’t in action (it was objectively adequate given the story), it’s just that it isn’t in action all the time.  This was a similar feeling I had with the 1st Spider-Man movie, you only really get to see Spidey in action in the later parts.  The thing is, the armor in action is just so cool that you really just want to see it all the time, even though Robert Downy Jr. does excellent acting outside of the armor.  Also, I wish the final-battle scene wasn’t “underpowered”, I’d really have loved to see a long long continuous booster/repulsor/missile/armor battle.  They had that, but it was a bit short for me.

Aside from this, everything else is great!  The movie appears to be doing quite well with ticket sales, and it deserves to be.  There are quite a few hints on franchise expansion, the obligatory Stan Lee cameo, and, if you listen closely, you’ll hear renditions of the old Iron Man cartoon theme song.  Also, you really have to wait until the after credits scene.

To sum this Iron Man movie review, WATCH IT!  And when you do, don’t forget to WATCH THE AFTER CREDITS SCENE!!!

[update]

After doing so well in the box-office, I’m not surprised that Marvel would annouce a sequel, and then some (see the Pipeline segment).

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