Iron Man

I must admit that I had little idea who Iron Man was until this movie was in post-production; with the exception of the song by Ozzie Osbourne, I don't think I had even heard the name before.

You see, contrary to the geek label that is often associated with me, I never read comic books as a child (unless Tintin by Hergé counts, but I think that’s more in the “nerd” category).  Anyway, despite this lack of knowledge about the subject, I enjoyed Iron Man.

Some of the highlights of the movie were the cool fictional technology, good acting, and the superb visual effects.  The Iron Man suit, was, of course, amazing.  I liked how it was made to be functional; it was very clear when watching the film that the suit shifted plates around to allow full mobility (rather than ignoring the inherent problems of metal on flesh).  Additionally, the suit features control surfaces to aid in flight.  Speaking of which, I liked that the film showed how unstable such flight would be before Tony perfected it.  Downey Jr.‘s acting was quite good, and I especially liked Jeff Bridges bald and with a full beard.  As I mentioned, the visual effects were top-notch; everything seemed to reflect, refract, and radiate light properly, and all of the impossible scenes (Pepper reaching into Tony’s open chest) looked flat-out real.  Must be because we saw our friend Gretchen’s name in the credits.

The only area where the movie faltered was its timeline; there were too many instances where my mind stepped out of the movie world and asked, “How on Earth could they have done X in Y amount of time?”  Granted, this movie is based on a comic book, but nonetheless I felt that there were some real stretches.  Like my good friend Mark mentioned, it’s like in the Star Wars universe where people can cross great distances in short periods of time when those same distances cause constraints otherwise.

All in all I enjoyed Iron Man very much, and the post-credits scene (stay and watch if you haven’t seen the movie yet) made me excited for a sequel.  In the movie adaptations of comic books world, I place this movie above Spider Man but slightly below The Dark Knight.

Rating (out of 4):