Could have been dangerous turf to tread on but they smacked it out of the park

Rating: 9/10 (21 May 2008)

I definitely had my doubts about Iron Man. First of all I am not a big Marvel fan, always been a DC kid, and Marvel has been churning out stinkers including the less than stellar Spiderman 3, Daredevil, Hulk, Fantastic 4 and so forth. I had very, very low expectations for the film and then the reviews started coming in from professional critics and...they loved it? They raved about it and then people started talking about how great it was and I knew I had to see it and find out for myself. First of all I can say that Iron Man is absolutely captivating. Nothing I feared for the film pans out...I thought special effects would be over blown and cheesy and they weren't even close!! I thought the story would be too fantastical to translate to screen and they did it perfectly. I had no background on Iron Man, never read a comic but it seemed to me to be the last hero you'd want to try to make into a serious live action film but it seems to me that the film makers took very careful steps in bringing the character to life and hired a cast that was quite simply brilliant in every way. A really great ensemble, a well thought out story, good but not overblown special effects, and really kept true to their fans already existing.
Robert Downey Jr. is being heralded for his performance as Billionaire arms dealer Tony Stark. He is excellent. He has a flare certainly for the sarcastic biting comedic wit. However that alone would have made him nothing more than a George Clooney as Batman fiasco but to my surprise he also made a terrific hero and leading man and really lights up the screen with his personality and performance. Terrence Howard who is a really terrific actor gets a supporting role without a lot of depth but given Howard's ability he makes a great pseudo sidekick to Downey Jr. performance. I think his character could have been given more but he does excellent. Jeff Bridges is just an amazing super villain. His story starts out on the low end and really turns him into the ultimate villain by the end with a very cool robotic fight at the end. He is just an excellent adversary and also extremely talented. Gwyneth Paltrow returns to the big budget screen as a sidekick to Tony Stark and somewhat of a love interest as Pepper Potts. Her role is toned down as well so as to not overshadow the main character but she is good opposite Downey Jr. and their chemistry is excellent. Throw in the obligatory appearance by co-creator and Marvel god Stan Lee (who I immediately recognized the first time) and a very small cameo role by director Jon Favreau and you've got an incredible cast together with a great story.
As with all Superhero films we have to get the creation of the character and the unique thing about Iron Man is that the entire film nearly is Stark creating and perfecting this persona and then exacting revenge and saving the world from his own weapons. The story definitely leaves everything wide open to serialize (they've already announced a sequel) but can they possibly re-create the same great team and story that they did for this one. To me, who had very low expectations, I have to feel like this was a big successful fluke that all these pieces fell into place but maybe I'm being pessimistic. Regardless Iron Man starts off the summer blockbusters with a huge bang and you won't be disappointed in the story, the action, the characters, the actors or anything else about it. I just found myself completely enthralled by the story as fantastical as it seems, somehow they found a way to make it real and bring it to life without it looking stupid and I thought that would be their real challenge but I was wrong. Iron Man is absolutely astounding!!! 9/10