Can he see, or is he blind?

Rating: 9/10 (27 September 2009)

You know, I'm sick and tired of big budget movies. They are all empty, shallow, vacuous excuses for entertainment, that are not worthy of our attention or money. That's what I was starting to think then, as if by inverse force of will, along comes a movie like Iron Man. Downey Jr. plays Howard Stark, a man blessed since childhood with the ability to 'engineer', to fashion the extraordinary from the seemingly ordinary. As the spiel near the start of the movie goes, at the age of 4 he built his first circuit board, at the age of 12 he built his first, erm, jet engine? Can't quite remember, but you get the idea: He was the sort of precocious young upstart who deserves nothing short of a damn good cuffing. Whilst showcasing his companies latest invention, the Jericho project, a weapons system designed, literally, to shock and awe an enemy into submission, he is kidnapped by a bunch of shady Arab sorts – apparently it is now OK to assume that all people of Middle Eastern extraction are somehow involved in terrorism. Asked to build his Jericho system for them, he suddenly sees the light, and determines that his company will no more be involved in the manufacture of weapons – a claim that does not sit well with his 2nd in command, Jeff Bridges hamming it up marvellously. Inevitably, as hostilities mount, a showdown looms and, ultimately, a huge CGI battle with robots hitting each other very hard kicks in. But here's the thing: Unlike that other movie of recent times that involved robots pounding the living Jesus out of one another, this is a fine film, as opposed to one of the worst movies in existence. Downey Jr. is all simmering good looks and oddball mannerisms, whilst the story ticks along at a fair old clip. The movie is plot-driven, not effects driven and whilst there is the aforementioned CGI-fest towards the end, it doesn't feel forced, more a natural progression of the plot line. With an Iron Man 2 already in post-production and an Iron Man 3 rumoured already (has the world gone completely mad?), what could have seemed an odd choice for comic book to movie conversion now simply seems inspired.