Finally a decent superhero movie

Rating: 7/10 (13 May 2008)

Iron Man avoids many of the embarrassing clichés of the previous superhero movies. You know what I mean; the hour of boring explanation why the hero really needs to become more interesting, the pause half-way to ponder Responsibility or Redemption or whatever, the troubled love relations that doesn't make sense. Go away, says this movie, and what's left is entertainment, pure and simple.
Although much of Iron Man contains the usual first-movie-in-series introducing and presenting, it is really funny and makes for solid entertainment. Unusual for a superhero movie. This is much thanks to the actors, all of them great but none as amazing as Robert Downey Jr. Still nervously babbling, but now with a touch of insufferable wealth and technical genius, we couldn't ask for a more pleasant performance. How this basically loathsome character can be so likable is all thanks to the writers and Downey Jr.
There isn't an overdose of CGI either. Animatronic models where built and sets where constructed, which looks amazing in many scenes. The Iron Man suit itself looks superb and for once, I found myself thinking "man, that looks real" instead of "man, that looks cool"(or more often "man, that looks fake"). Is Iron Man special or have we finally breached some sort of barrier here? The up-coming Hulk spectacle answers that question nicely: No, CGI still sticks out like a clown penguin. I guess Iron Man got lucky.
All in all, Iron Man is better than most A-level superhero movies such as the Batman reboot or Spiderman. It is fun, engaging and clever, sometimes relatively original, and very, very likable. Go see it in the cinema while you have time.