A True Blockbuster

Rating: 10/10 (15 May 2008)

With a meteoric rise from first-time film making Marvel Enterprises, we get to see an action-packed, funny, and eye-popping movie with a perfect cast and an even more perfect script.
To start with, IRON MAN needed a great lead character. Tony Stark is known to be cocky, good-looking, and an all-around bad-boy. So who better to inhabit this persona than Robert Downey Jr. (GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK). I think most people know Downey Jr.'s difficulties and run-ins with the law over the past several years, and I could think of no one better to pull off this character than someone who has some of those very same flaws.
You also need a good villain, and Obadiah Stane was the perfect stab-in-the-back. Played very well by the surprising Jeff Bridges (TIDELAND), I found myself repulsed by his money-mongering ways that Tony (Downey Jr.) wants so badly to be rid of after considering (and witnessing) the human cost.
We get a bit of romantic/sexual tension, too, in the form of Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, PROOF), Tony Stark's life secretary. The drop-dead gorgeous dress that Potts wears to a dance and the subsequent almost-kiss make for some of the best tightly wound scenes between a man and woman within a comic-book-to-film venture.
Another huge plus for the film is the amazing CGI. Never once will the audience believe they aren't watching real life. This is, in part, thanks to Downey Jr.'s incorporation into these scenes as he tries and often fails to get his Iron Man suit off the ground. It's also hilarious to watch Tony Stark admonish his robotic gadgets as they try to help him but, more often than not, hurt him in some way (by spraying him with a fire extinguisher, for example, even though there's no fire).
I also really enjoyed the perfectly timed dialogue:
Stark: "Okay, seriously, I feel like you're driving me to court martial. This is crazy. What did I do? I feel like you're gonna pull over and snuff me. What, you're not allowed to talk? Hey, Forest..."
Jimmy: "We can talk, sir."
Stark: "Oh, I see. So it's personal. Alright."
Ramirez: "You intimidate them, sir."
Stark: "Good god, you're a woman! I honestly couldn't have called that. I mean, I would apologize, but isn't that what we're going for here? I thought of you as a soldier first."
Ramirez: "I'm an airman."
Stark: "Well you actually have excellent bone structure there. I'm having a hard time not looking at you now. Is that weird?"
This kind of snappy dialogue is sprinkled throughout the film and keeps the viewer laughing and interested the entire length of the movie.
Plenty of times movie-goers have seen films with a lot of action and no substance, but Iron Man happily  and easily  gives us both. It's well-deserving of the title "blockbuster." And if you really want to see what lay ahead for Iron Man, please stay til after the credits have finished rolling. You'll be exceptionally pleased if you do.