How it all began

Rating: 6/10 (15 February 2016)

"Iron Man" is an American superhero film from 8 years ago and it was the great revival of Robert Downey Jr.'s career. Once a lauded young television actor and Oscar nominee for "Chaplin", he quickly faced the dark side of show business, but in 2008 he pursued his great comeback. And he should not only lead the "Iron Man" franchise, but quickly afterward also become the new "Sherlock Holmes" and certainly a superior one to Benedict Cumberbatch. But lets get back to this film we have here. It received great audience numbers and critics reviews and was one of the main reasons why superhero films are so much en vogue again. But it's not all Downey Jr.'s achievement. Jeff Bridges created a nice main antagonist shortly before his Oscar win and then there is of course Jon Favreau's (an actor himself, also appears in here) strong direction and a truly excellent script for such a genre film.
Its biggest strength is probably how well-structured it all is. The first third is about the hostage situation, the second is about Stark's change in character and the consequences and the final third of the film is what you may call the boss fight. I generally don't mind if we find out about the main antagonist right away, but it was also nicely done with the path they chose here. Then again, Marvel fans certainly knew right away. It was a very smart decision. The terrorists were the main villains for at least half the film until we found out who was in charge of them really and there is one scene way into the second half during which we see they are not in control at all. It's also a decent development that will not offend people that follow the religion of Islam, who may have seen this film as being too much against their faith otherwise.
The film runs for slightly over 2 hours with credits and that's perfectly fine. No need to stretch it to 150 minutes and the way it is it also never drags and is an enjoyable watch from start to finish. The only somewhat negative association I had came with Gwyneth Paltrow who was occasionally cringeworthy in her few scenes. Then again, I do not see much talent in her anyway. And one notion about the Transformers-like fight at the end. I would have preferred that the way he could have won would have been with that reference to freezing armor, which was very nice and certainly would have been my preferred choice over a collaboration battle with Paltrow's character. It also would have emphasized again what they were telling us for the entire film. Stark may have been a bon vivant, but he is also a lone wolf. Apart from that, I was happy that the film focused a lot more on story than on special effects and visuals. I wish more superhero films would go that route.
As a whole, needless to say now that I enjoyed the watch and will certainly rewatch the second film and watch the third at some point. And I am not even speaking about the other Avengers film that I will certainly watch at some point in the future too. Thanks to Mr. Samuel L. Jackson for leading us towards them in the post-credit sequence. As for "Iron Man", this was a pretty good effort I must say. Delivered in basically all areas convincingly and I urge you to check this one out. On a final note, I liked that they cast fairly unknown actors for major supporting parts here such as Yinsen and Raza, also something that other (superhero) film makers should go for in the future.