Shellhead flies to victory.

Rating: 8/10 (4 May 2008)

What can I say? My childhood favourite Marvel superhero gets a movie worthy of his name and is probably second only to Spiderman 2 as the best Marvel film yet. The offbeat, yet interesting casting of Downey Jr as Tony Stark - as offbeat as Kelsey Grammar as Beast - provides as character study that keeps you hooked through the expository scenes. Manchild Stark is sleazily likable enough and Downey conveys a jaded world-weary tone with his posture during the scene with the pole-dancing stewardesses. This is a man ripe for a fall and his scenes with the Afghans have all the urgency of an Oliver Stone movie. Yinsen is interestingly expanded upon from the Oriental original to an intriguing figure who gives Stark his heart back in more than one sense of the word. The original grey armour is plausibly rough-hewn and its nice to see Stark is a ruthless combattant who has no qualms about sending baddies off to a nasty end - how does that match with an Avengers oath. My one complaint is that there are few action scenes for shellhead. The story of how Stane develops his Iron Monger armour is a nice twist and Jeff Bridges - an unlikely choice for the main baddie - comes across as an intriguing variant on John Huston in Chinatown - outward bonhomie occasionally slipping to show the dangerously hollow man underneath. Gwynneth Paltrow has a gawky charm as the lovelorn but unappreciated Pepper Potts though I'm more of a Bethan Cabe man myself and the final clash with Stane is bog-standard - but roll on the sequels.