I, Ron Man, er. Iron Man rocks!

Rating: 10/10 (9 May 2008)

Robert Downey Jr. plays Tony Stark from the Marvel comic; a flamboyant billionaire inventor who runs a weapons company. On a trip to Afghanistan to demonstrate his latest invention, the Jericho Missile, he is kidnapped by terrorists and made to assemble one of these missiles for them. Instead, inside the cave in which they have imprisoned him, he builds the prototype Iron Man suit, and effects his escape but during so realizes that his company has been arming the bad guys of the world for years, a fact that does not sit well with him. This is what changes him and sets the table for the rest of the movie. The visual effects are great, RDJ inhabits the role very well as he suffers a bout of conscience in his chosen field of work. Hs decision to become someone that matters by donning the Iron Man suit makes sense. I felt by the middle of the movie that it could very easily have sputtered to a halt, but that feeling was quickly dispelled, because the character is shown to be the type who will never sit around as long as he has some cool toy to play with. And as Iron Man, the playboy has a purpose. It may be standard comic book morality, but it works. There will be sequels, and hopefully they will be almost as good as this one.