One of the Best Comic Book Adaptations

Rating: 8/10 (6 May 2008)

I saw Iron Man on Friday, and I thought it was an excellent movie. When I first heard Robert Downey Jr. was going to be cast in the lead role, I had my doubts, but I don't think they could have picked a better leading man. Gwenneth Paltrow plays his assistant/love interest in the film and she is very good. It isn't often when you get an academy award winning actor for a flick like these. Jeff Bridges, a very underrated actor in my opinion, is also excellent in his role as a shadowy business partner. In a lot of comic book movies, you can tell the actors are phoning it in for a paycheck, but that isn't the case here.
The effects are amazing. Probably the best of any comic book adaptation so far. Rarely does computer generated imagery (CGI) look so real. I couldn't tell when something was CGI or not. The action scenes were also good. There could have been more, but a lot of action was sacrificed for plot and character development, which is a good thing, though I think the momentum of the story suffered a litte slowdown in the middle.
So, it comes down to this: if a movie about a billionaire that makes a high tech suit of armor that allows him to fly and shoot lazer beams out of his hands sounds stupid to you, don't see it. If you are like me, that is freaking awesome! I love comic books and comic book adaptation movies, and I have always been an Iron Man fan, so that they pulled off this movie so well was a real treat. There is an excellent mix of seriousness and comedy that is just perfect, and the scenes where he is building the suit, which happens the whole movie, make this story as believable as possible. Luckily, this comic book movie is filed in with the good ones (Batman Begins, X-Men 1 &2, Spieder-man 1 & 2) and not the bad ones (Fantastic Four 1 &2, Ghost Rider, Spider-man 3).
I give Iron Man a 4.5 out of 5.