Iron Man

I was quite impressed with this movie. I'm not a comic fangirl by any means, so I love it when I can walk into a movie that has it's roots in comics but makes an effort to include me. Also, the movie was kid-friendly (unless you're sensitive to drinking alcohol), which was an added benefit for me since I saw it with my parents, and then AGAIN with my neices and nephew.

(It's funny how that cross-relates, isn't it? I don't like watching heavy horror or heavy sexual content with my parents. Maybe I've gotten to that age where I'm starting to take a care-taker role. Or maybe it just makes me uncomfortable knowing that my parents can see how comfortable I actually am with gore and sex? Who knows...on with the review!)

The flow of the movie was very well-paced and the action sequences were fast; there were lots of things blowing up (yeah!). It rarely lagged, and then not for long, and moved in an easy-to-follow logical progression. Robert Downey Jr. did a wonderful job as Tony Stark, to the point that I can't imagine another actor fitting the role nearly so well. Evidently he worked out quite a bit in order to fit the image of a "superhero" and I applaude him for that. He did look good, and fit the character to a "T".

The other characters were also well done, although I did have minor issues with Terrence Howard's character, Col. Rhodes, and his apparent uber-authority over all things deemed "experimental technology." These all stem from my own military background though, and are not really significant. Although it also bothered me that he was conveniently always there... but that, too, is minor.

One military-related item of note that was well done, though: all the scenes of Afghanistan looked like Afghanistan! That made me happy. (The Qatar scenes from Transformers made me squicky, in comparison, seeing as to how I have family stationed there, and it is NOT that way, at all. My sisters, who are there, were so sidetracked by that they missed the first 30 mins of the movie complaining about it.)

Another peeve of mine from the movie is the apparent indestrictibility of Tony Stark himself. You'll note it at several points in the movie, no doubt, since I can't be the only one that it bothered.

All in all, though, I'm nominating it for Best Movie of the Spring of '08. I can't say it's the best movie of the year at present, but, since the spring is over, I'll give it that. There are, of course, going to be sequels, and I've heard and sincerely hope it is true, that the actors are signed up to remain the same. I'm completely down with watching them, and also the other spin-off movies that go with this, which I'm just not a fangirl enough to keep track of. I'll let the movie sites do their job, and just stick with my own personal musings here.

So, overall, I'd say 4.5/5. Great job, guys! Please don't screw up the sequels ... ahem ... Spiderman ... ahem.