Alright, so I didn’t have time yesterday to yell from the highest peaks of the internet about Iron Man, but let me tell you - this is easily among the best superhero movies I’ve seen. There’s been some great adaptations of comics characters over the past few years, but Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man is flawless. I mean, how hard could his portrayal of rich, alcoholic international celebrity Tony Stark really have been? But seriously, as a comics nerd or a casual fan, you’ll walk away wishing for a sequel on this one.

While I was totally expecting this to be a face off against long time rival The Mandarin, such was not the case. Instead we see Iron Man battle a very specific sect of a Middle Eastern terrorist group, as well as someone who betrays his confidence that I won’t spoil for you. At first I was worried this would turn into a flag waving git-r-dun war propaganda movie, but by the end it was clear that Iron Man’s only interest was righting the very obvious wrongs done to him and others by a small specific group of people, rather than taking the whole war on by himself.

My only half serious complaints are that there was no cameo appearance by Ghostface, who you probably know often references back to Iron Man. There is however a sweet Stan Lee cameo, so pay attention for that. In the same vein, it would have been hilarious to see any kind of subtle nod by Obadiah Stane (played by Jeff Bridges, man) to The Big Lebowski. Just one White Russian wouldn’t have hurt would it?

Oh, and if you’re at all familiar with the Marvel Universe - sit tight through the credits as there is a truly mindblowing cameo that had me cheering and pumping my fist like I was Arsenio Hall. I’d say it’s the highlight of the movie except for the fact that the final fight scene took the groundwork for mechanical urban battles laid out by Transformers and made it 1000% better. Don’t miss this one.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 at 6:43 pm and is filed under Comics, Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.