Movies: Iron Man

Let me give you a little information about me to start you off. I am a comic book nut. As a teenager I was introduced to X-Men, Spiderman, and Batman and I was changed for the rest of my life. Days spent combing through crates of old comics listening to the Beatles and generally acting like a teenager in an era gone by, I felt comfortable losing myself in those worlds and characters. My love affair with books had existed for a long time before comics entered my universe but there was something about being able to see the characters in action...combining Saturday morning cartoons with worlds I had built around the books I read was frankly transcendent.

Having expressed my weakness let me now mention that tonight I caught the movie Iron Man with friends.

I went into this movie with high expectations and a lot of anticipation. I know, I know X-Men 3, The Hulk, and shudder, Spiderman 3 these duds are enough to give any comic book movie lover pause. I am a strict critic of comic book movies where I have foreknowledge of the comic they are based upon. Did they get the hair right? Was the plotline accurate, or if they made the plot up, was it true to the essence of the characters? Who the heck is that supposed to be? I don't think so, she has red hair and her mutant power is peeling potatoes without a utensil. My inner monologue runs through thousands of these critiques during the first half an hour of comic book movies until I decide either to go with the flow because they have done a "good enough" job or decide that I hate the movie's creators and seethe throughout the rest of the film.

Trailers packed with versions of the heavy metal song, hype over Robert Downey Jr's performance, and the anticipation of the opening salvo of the summer movie rush had me in a bit of a state. Normally, I try not to get too excited about movies I want to see but in this case I just couldn't help myself. Feeding into this excitement was the fact that I have very little background in Iron Man. I know enough to know the basic premise and I have seen a couple of Cartoon Network type specials based on the comic, but that is as far as my knowledge base goes.

After all of that anticipation I can honestly say that Iron Man did not disappoint. The movie opens with the traditional origin story. Aside from an update to make the enemy of choice more current this was, as I understand it, spot on as an Iron Man origin story and it just got better from there. I will try to avoid spoilers but I must say that the casting of this movie was brilliant. Robert Downey Jr was fantastic, his own acerbic wit and sarcastic delivery of lines gave Tony Stark a depth and humor that was only hinted at in the original comic book. The character comes across totally full of himself and Downy Jr plays that to perfection. Gweneth Paltrow is not normally ranked among my favorite actresses, but in this movie she was the right mix of damsel in distress, competent career woman, and general love interest. her performance did what this character should do, ad value without overshadowing everyone else or annoying anyone (ahem, Lois Lane, any Lois Lane). Jeff Bridges was also brilliant in this movie, I won't say too much but his new look is shocking and it really works for the character. Given that this was basically an origin story the writers did a really good job of showing the evolution of the character. They managed to get many iterations of the suit into the movie and it was really nice that they showed the awkward stages of development. A sequence where the character is learning how to fly was particularly funny and showed the difficulties of flight instead of just making him an instant ace at flying. They also gave a justifiable reason for Iron Man's stiff takeoff and landing pose.

The plotline was fairly standard comic movie fare, it was believable enough if you ignore most of the science and it has a worthwhile ending leaving it open for possible sequels. A few things to watch out for:

1. Pay attention to the name of the prominent government agency, if you are a comic fan you will get a kick out of it.
   


2. STAY TILL THE CREDITS ARE OVER. There is a pleasant surprise at the end.

Overall this movie was well written, well acted, and well actioned. Well above Spiderman 1 or 2 and on par or above the recent Batman reboot. I give it an A. I couldn't have asked for more.

Thank you all for reading. Tomorrow The Forbidden Kingdom.

P.S. My husband and I have this habit of counting stunt men at the end of movies, a practice which is becoming easier as movies move more heavily into digital effects. However, this one ranked an even 100, which is quite reasonable for a movie of this caliber.