Iron Man

Fun, Slick, Exciting, Incredible.

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) really is the guy most boys want to be when they grow up, charming, sophisticated, rich, handsome, has supermodels dropping at his feet, oh and all of this is before he even becomes a super-hero.

Downey is by far Iron Man’s greatest strength, the film rests on his shoulders with ease and every scene with him flies by as he’s such a joy to watch. He’s the perfect choice for the character and in more ways then one, as I’m sure the sequels will reveal…

To add to this, you have an amazing cast of characters to back him up with Gweneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard and Jeff Bridges all playing magnificent parts and bring life to this comic-book world.

The action sequence are fun, fantastic and keep a sense of realism to them all at the same time, which allows you to get absorbed into the world without ever thinking to yourself “that’s not possible.”

The story is strong, yet balances the origin of our hero with the birth of a villain a bit unevenly. The main problem is that the origin story is by far the focus (and is very strong), but being a summer-blockbuster it has to have a climatic fight at the end and the creation of Iron-Monger feels a tad rushed in comparison to the excellence of the Tonk Starks story. But that’s a minor quibble.

The special effects are a combination of CGI and practial, and ILM have blantantly used the same technology originally created for Transformers for Iron Man’s suit, this isn’t a bad thing though and looks amazing.

My only problem with Iron Man (and this isn’t the films fault itself) was the trailer! You see, the trailer basically set out the whole movie in chronological order in 2 and half minutes. Therefore, whilst watching the film, I did sometimes feel like I’d seen it all before and knew what was going to happen. The worst case being Stark’s capture in the middle-east, as I already knew how he was going to escape, etc. Obviously this is my own fault, but nonetheless it did effect my viewing slightly.

I can’t hold this against the film per se, just maybe the marketing department!

Definitely top rate entertainment, that is a combination of classic James Bond and a super-hero film, highly recommended.

8.5/10