What Makes a Good Comic Book Movie?

Rating: 9/10 (24 May 2011)

There 3 key components to making a great comic book movie: 1) Casting 2) Writing/directing and 3) Consideration of the source material.
Iron Man takes a character that has flourished in the walls of the Marvel Universe for 50 years, yet never really broke across mainstream media in the way that a Spider-Man or a Wolverine has, and pushes him to the forefront of the mainstream. Why was Iron Man such a great movie, not just as a comic book movie, but also as a MOVIE movie? 1)Casting - Who is the best actor in Hollywood to play a borderline narcissistic, alcoholic, eccentric billionaire playboy? How about a real-life borderline narcissistic, alcoholic, eccentric, billionaire playboy? The casting (and performance) of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark was about as perfect as you can get. He truly brought Tony Stark to life. And what is a good hero without a good villain (nothing in case you were wondering). Enter Jeff Bridges. He did a superb job opposite RDJ as Obidiah Stane.
2) Writing/directing - There is one word to describe the writing in this movie; smart, both from the overall plot to the dialog from scene to scene. The lines were crisp and often humorous yet still keeping in the action movie frame of mind; the perfect blend of cliché humor and serious dramatic fare. The directing was also top-notch (not what I would have expected from Favreau, but BRAVO). The story is perfectly paced and the action scenes are crisp and do a great job avoiding that annoying shaky-cam style of action that for some reason is so popular nowadays. There is also much taken to really develop the characters so you understand them and can relate to them as real people.
3) Source material - Fanboys will forever whine about certain aspects of comic book movies stating "that's not how it happened in the comic". That's the point. No one wants to see a story ripped frame for frame out of a comic book. Comic book movies are meant to be a re imagination of the source material; something that tells a new story yet still remains true to the most important aspects of the source. Iron Man does that perfectly.
I will admit that my one gripe with this movie is that I would have liked to see a little more action in the suit. The biggest issue with this movie is it does something that far too many action movies do with the final fight scene. It sends the hero in half cocked (or in this case at half power basically) and has him get whooped by the villain up and down yet somehow manages to miraculously pull out the victory.
Again, that's my ONLY gripe. That really doesn't detract from all of the other fantastic aspects of this movie. Still a solid 9/10.