Fantasy Superhero

Rating: 7/10 (14 May 2008)

Ironman's alter ego (Tony Stark) is a millionaire, playboy, genius/inventor with an off color sense of humor. Underneath his egotistical, cynical, comedic exterior is a noble heart for the larger things in life such as world peace. He even has Gwyneth Paltrow as an assistant who does ALL to service and please him. As Ironman he is the invincible beast who crushes the "evil doers" like flies, soars through the air at supersonic speed to wherever he wants and has a sleek hotrod suit with all the gadgets you would want. Not only is he the superhero inside the suit but he is the inventor as well. This is the ideal fantasy superhero, the type of superhero you would want to be and that is the fun of it.
Smartly made in a not to be taken too seriously fashion since the overall mood is tongue and cheek, contains moments of Three Stooges type slapstick (when he first attempts to upgrade his suit), and the unlikely superhero Robert Downey Jr. plays Ironman. All this means fun which prevails over the predictability and redundancy of this superhero movies. This is another scientist who instead of mutating to something supersonic builds his mechanical organism. Then the typical superhero movie formula ensues and it is just somewhat interesting. Despite being only somewhat interesting particularly since it doesn't have a very interesting character study with a history (like Batman and Spiderman do) and it lacks a cast of idiosyncratic villains (unlike Batman or Spiderman) it is still fun, well done and well directed. You'll have fun watching this fantasy play-out