Iron Man gears up for a sequel

Rating: 8/10 (3 May 2008)

It was a good film and certainly worth the admission, but not awe-inspiring like Spiderman 1 & 2. There were definitely some very cool scenes, like the fighter flight, design and building of the v.2 armor and everything having to do with Stark's fancy computer interfaces, and in the end, the scene building up to "I am Iron Man." Iron Man seems to be made to reach its eventual payoff not before a sequel or possibly several. It's very much an introductory movie where they're holding out on the Iron Man goodness to establish characters and develop them.
This is not to say that the film would necessarily benefit from more action. The break from the constant fighting of superhero movies is refreshing, and the character interactions are handled really well and in an interesting way - with the exception of the baddie, who was just an excuse to kick any and all dogs available, and to provide an underwhelming "big fight" at the end of the movie. Whatever motivations the antagonist might have had, they were completely undermined by the baffling and unfounded actions forced upon the character to bring some sense of conclusion to the movie.
Iron Man is a good film, but held back by too much prepping for sequels instead of focusing on the movie at hand, and a main baddie whose development and motivations are criminally poor.