I have seen my fair share of Marvel Super Hero movies over the past few years: Spiderman, X-Men, The Fantastic Four, Hulk, Daredevil…the list goes on. One thing that I can say without any hesitation is that Iron Man blows them all away in every aspect. When this movie was made you can definitely tell that the writers had future plans for Iron Man (stay for the end of the credits if you don’t know what I mean). In many of the super hero films half of the movie is spent figuring out what weird twisted mutation the main character will take on to become his super powered alter ego. In Iron Man they waste very little time building up the character of Tony Stark; it’s all summed up rather quickly then all hell breaks loose.

To me Tony Stark is the Marvel version of Bruce Wayne (except Stark is all about money and not much of a humanitarian). Without his suit of armor he’s pretty much the stereotypical billionaire playboy; much like Wayne. I don’t want to give away everything about the movie, so I’ll just talk about the movie in general. 

CHARACTERS

Every character in the movie is spot on with the comic books. I was personally not too pleased when I saw Apple’s Mom (Gwyneth Paltrow) in the previews, but as the movie went on I found her to be a perfect fit for the role of “Pepper” Potts, Stark’s Assistant.

Obadiah Stane is the mentor of Tony Stark played by Jeff Bridges. Personally, when I first saw him I had no clue who it was until I heard the unmistakable voice of Bridges. He plays a huge role in the film towards the end and that’s all I’m going to say.

Tony’s good friend and military liaison Lt. Col. James Rhodes is played by Terrence Howard. We see a lot of him during the late stages of the film when Iron Man really takes center stage and gets in the mix. His character is on the fence with Stark’s attitude towards the military after his run in with terrorists, but he comes around in the end. If there’s a sequel or cross-over (hint-hint); we’ll definitely be seeing more of Rhodes.

Robert Downey Jr. was perfect as Tony Stark! His attitude, sense of humor and overall look was dead on for the arms dealer turned hero. If you’ve ever read any of the comic books or seen any of the animated movies with Iron Man you’ll agree that Downey Jr. was perfect for the part. Some of the scenes where he’s working on the testing of the suit were hilarious. I know I laughed out loud a few times.

SPECIAL EFFECTS

Okay, I don’t know about you but I thought the Iron Man suits were awesome! The way they developed getting Stark into the suit was cool as hell. The first time we see the Mark 3 suit in action blew me away. The famous tank scene in the trailers is by far the coolest with Iron Man firing a rocket into the tank and waltzing off calmly as it explodes was freakin’ awesome! I’m glad that it was retooled for the movie after the Super Bowl spot. The original version was too CGI and looked fake…it looks 100 times better now.

OVERALL REACTION

Obviously, I loved the movie. I want to see it again in the theaters and when it comes out on Blu Ray I’ll be pickig it up for sure. I felt that it was the perfect length for a Super Hero Movie at just over two hours. Any longer and I would’ve had to piss like Seabiscuit from the large Dr. Pepper I downed during the film. There are a lot of great movies coming out that I can’t wait to see. This was at the top of the charts for me…just ahead of The Dark Knight. May and June will be long, expensive months for me. Having an eight year-old son who loves movies is going to break the bank.

So have you guys seen the flick? What did you think? What movies are you looking forward to this Summer ‘08?

Next movie stop for GrandmasterB is Speed Racer, followed by the highly anticipated Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Until next time…

~ GrandmasterB