Computer Animation & Stan Lee- A Modern Marriage Made in Heaven

Rating: 6/10 (26 December 2008)

Stan Lee & his comic character creations are a marriage made in movie heaven. The success of the Spider Man series has proved this. This is the latest creation from Stan Lees characters of Marvel Comics. It is an entertaining film.
Genius Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is the successful CIO of the Stark Industries, a weapon company founded by his father. His second in command is Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), who worked with his father, and his loyal and professional secretary is Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), who has a crush on Tony. While in Afghnistan to demonstrate the ultimate Jericho missile developed by his company, his military convoy is attacked and Tony is seriously wounded on his chest and kidnapped by a group of rebels that wants him to assemble a missile for their use. Tony stays with his abductors for three months and develops a powerful metallic armor to escape from the cave where he is arrested. He decides to stop manufacturing weapons in his company under the protest of Obadiah, and dedicates his time to improve the armor, manufacturing it with gold and titanium and installing a propulsion system to fly. However, Pepper discovers that Tony was betrayed by Obadiah, who is using Tony's data to build prototype armor for him, transforming it in the ultimate weapon.
There are some sparks between Paltrow & Downey Junior which can be developed. This is not as strong an entry as the Spiderman series yet because it falls a little short on story. This is because these script writers just wrote their first script with Lee's material. Maybe with more development and the next sequel which is sure to be coming, it will get stronger. There are a lot of good things here though.
It appears that casting of Starks & Pepper are right to carry this series on. I am wondering when & if they are going to try to bring Thor, the God of Thunder, another of Lees characters to the screen. That shall be a major challenge. With a stronger story line & more development between Stark & Pepper, this can become as strong as the Spiderman series. Stan Lees material being brought to the big screen is becoming a blessing to modern film viewers.