Iron Giant

Rating: Null/10 (26 May 2017)

Based on the iconic comic book character, 'Iron Man' follows a weapons engineer who manufactures a flying armor suit and has to stop those interested in copying the suit for their own evil purposes. Robert Downey Jr. is well cast as the arrogant, wise-cracking protagonist. Shot down in the Middle East, his shock and utter disbelief over his weapons being sold on the black market, causing more harm than good, never quite rings true. His naivety does, however, allow for a solid character progression as he goes from only caring about how much money his company makes to genuinely caring about how his weapons are used. The film spends a refreshingly large amount of time on Downey's back- story too; there are only scattered action scenes during the first half of the movie as the focus is always making Downey's flawed character likable before he turns superhero. The other characters are sadly less interesting. Unrecognisable at first with one zany hairdo, Jeff Bridges has some fun bits, but the likes of Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow are given little to do; the film also keeps going back and forth on the possibility of Paltrow as a love interest for Downey. Between the film's robot butler, the in-depth character back-story and Downey's charisma, 'Iron Man' has a lot going in its favour, but whether it is truly one of the better superhero movies out there is debatable.